A retired Toronto police officer who leaked information about a visit by NDP Leader Jack Layton to a massage clinic in 1996 will not be charged.

Although the unnamed former officer violated a Police Act rule that an officer’s notebooks are property of the police service and its contents cannot be made public, he will face no penalty.

The former officer told Sun Media last week that he and a partner found Layton in a Chinatown massage parlour believed to be a bawdy house 15 years ago, when Layton was a city council member.

The story relied on excerpts from the police officer’s notebook. As there was no evidence Layton was there for anything more than a therapeutic session, no charges were laid.

Layton called the story, published just days before Monday’s federal election as the NDP surged in the polls, a “smear campaign.”

Chief Bill Blair asked the OPP to investigate the officer for a possible breach of trust regarding the disclosure of police information.

“We got on it immediately on Saturday when we got the request from the Toronto police chief,” said OPP Insp. Dave Ross.

“It wasn’t a complex matter. The investigation found there were no grounds to support criminal charges. The notebooks in question were returned to the Toronto Police Service.”

The OPP investigation did find that the anonymous officer had been in possession of his notebooks even though they belong to the police service.

A police source said the officer would likely not have leaked the contents of the notebook had he not been retired, since it would have resulted in Police Act charges.

Police notebooks are supposed to be kept in storage at the division or unit the officer is assigned to so they can be accessed when required, but there is nothing — other than his sworn duty — to stop an officer from photocopying pages or excerpts.