It was the off-hand comments that gave Wendy Noonan, a dispatcher at the Barrie Police Service, a sick feeling her boss was watching her house, she says. On one occasion, she alleges, he told her he saw a light on in a second-storey window. On another, she says, he told her she had left her recycling bins at the curb.

One day when she was home from work, she says, she saw his police cruiser driving slowly along her quiet residential street. She says he sped off when she tried to approach him.

Ms. Noonan filed an internal complaint against Sergeant Tim Conroy, accusing him of harassing her. But she feels that she is the one who has been punished for speaking out against a veteran officer with 30 years' service.

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The divorced mother of a 12-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl has had no paycheque since last July, when her short-term disability benefits ran out – she was on sick leave because of stress-related symptoms she attributes to the ordeal. She has worked for Barrie Police since 2006, and wants to return to the service on modified duties. Her employer argues she is not fit to return and has urged her to apply for long-term disability benefits.

"I don't understand why they wouldn't take me back when I haven't done anything wrong," Ms. Noonan said in an interview at her home in Barrie. "If they don't take me back, it will just show the rest of the service this is the result if you report harassment."

Ms. Noonan, 43, is taking her case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario – a hearing will be held on Thursday. Her struggle for justice outlined in her complaint to the tribunal serves as a textbook case of why so few women report harassment to their employer. A recent Angus Reid poll found that four out of five men and women who say they have endured unwelcome advances at work did not tell their employer, citing embarrassment or fear their career would suffer.

For Ms. Noonan, it was not just the incident itself that caused enormous stress. It was the sense she got that everyone at the police service just wanted the problem to go away.

An internal investigation into her harassment complaint dragged on for more than eight months. Two of her neighbours who say they often saw Sgt. Conroy's cruiser on their street told The Globe and Mail that Barrie Police officials never interviewed them. And Ms. Noonan says she was not shown a copy of the report or given enough assurances that her concerns were addressed.

"These are the only people who can tell me I am going to be safe," she said.

Constable Angie Butler, a media relations officer at Barrie Police, declined to comment on a matter before the Human Rights Tribunal. Sgt. Conroy, reached at his home on Sunday, said: "I don't wish to speak about it." A lawyer representing Barrie Police has asked the tribunal to strike out all allegations against Sgt. Conroy, arguing they are not relevant to Ms. Noonan's human rights case. In an interim decision dated Dec. 22, tribunal adjudicator Sheri Price says this is an "evidentiary matter" to be determined at the hearing.

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Ms. Noonan alleges that Sgt. Conroy began making comments about watching her house in 2011, when he was a patrol sergeant in her platoon. This troubled her, she says, because she was not aware of anything on her crescent that would warrant regular police patrols.

In 2012, Sgt. Conroy became her supervisor. At one point, her complaint alleges, he told her, "You should be giving a piece to the officers on the side to help them through their marriages." After he returned from a Caribbean vacation that year, she says, he told her he pictured her and other female dispatchers in bikinis. After she asked Sgt. Conroy's supervisor to speak to him, Sgt. Conroy became agitated with her, the complaint alleges. He took away some of her duties, including assigning patrol cars for setting up perimeters. The supervisor reported back that Sgt. Conroy was watching her house out of care and concern, the complaint alleges.

Even after Sgt. Conroy was transferred to another unit in November, 2012, and was no longer her direct supervisor, she says, the harassment did not end. On his last day he told her, "I will still be watching you to see when you are being bad," according to the complaint.

At that point, she said in the interview, she panicked and began thinking he was following her everywhere.

In January, 2013, Ms. Noonan went on stress leave and formally complained two months later. She met with Barrie Police officials in March to discuss her allegations. When she arrived home, her next-door neighbour, Jeff Bergsma, saw that she was upset and asked what was wrong. She told him her story and Mr. Bergsma responded that he had seen a police cruiser with an officer matching her description behind the wheel drive up and down their street almost every day in the summer of 2008, according to the complaint. He had been laid off from his job that summer and was home doing yard work.

"At first, I thought that was pretty decent," Mr. Bergsma said in an interview. "They're watching the street." But after he heard Ms. Noonan's story, he said he found it "dodgy."

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Barry Letman, who lives across the street from Ms. Noonan, also said in an interview that he had often seen the police cruiser parked on the street near Ms. Noonan's driveway. He said he didn't think anything of it, because he knew Ms. Noonan worked for the police. "I thought she is seeing someone at the police station, so I didn't question it."

Ms. Noonan said she told Barrie Police what her neighbours had seen. But the neighbours told The Globe they were never interviewed by Barrie Police about Ms. Noonan's complaint. They have not seen the cruiser on their street since Ms. Noonan launched her complaint.

In April, 2013, Ms. Noonan returned to work doing modified duties in administration. That continued until January, 2014, when Barrie Police told her they had completed their investigation. She went back on stress leave that month, not feeling safe at work or at home.

Her lawyer, Allan Kaufman, said he cannot discuss the contents of the internal investigation because of the upcoming tribunal hearing. But he said he wrote to Glenn Christie, the lawyer for Barrie Police, asking him to produce records, which could show any time Sgt. Conroy was on Ms. Noonan's street. The police service's AVL system – short for automatic vehicle location – tracks the location of all police cruisers. Mr. Kaufman said he never got a response.

Mr. Christie said in an e-mail to The Globe that he does not comment on client matters. Mr. Kaufman said Ms. Noonan is "frozen" out of her job, leaving her in "no man's land." He said three medical experts have concluded she is fit to return to work, including her family physician. One medical expert hired by Barrie Police disagrees, he said, asserting she is not fit to return.

Ms. Noonan said there were many times she regretted speaking out, though she knew it was the right thing to do.

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"Every time I spoke up about it," she said, "things got worse for me."