Hamilton police are investigating their own after a human-trafficking victim complained that local officers did not take her case seriously, forcing her to go to an outside police service.

The internal investigation follows a case in which a victim and her husband plastered hundreds of wanted photos of a human-trafficking suspect all over downtown Hamilton this past August.

Peel Regional Police eventually arrested and charged Robert Wheaton with procuring, advertising sexual services, trafficking in persons, receiving benefits resulting from trafficking in persons and forcible confinement.

It's alleged Wheaton coerced the woman, who cannot be named, into sex work that began at a Peel Region strip club and continued in Hamilton between 2016 and 2017.

The woman escaped last April after her then-estranged husband — who also can't be named to protect her identity — tracked her down at a Hamilton rooming house.

The pair complained to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) in October. After a preliminary investigation, the police watchdog sent the complaint to Hamilton police to investigate.

Hamilton police declined to comment on the case. Spokesperson Jackie Penman said the service does not comment on matters that are before the OIPRD.

According to the official complaint, the woman said she was being held against her will at a Sanford Avenue North house when police learned her estranged husband was on his way and promised to do a well-being check in December 2016.

She alleges the police officer spoke to her with her captor standing within earshot. She was suffering from the superbug MRSA and had lesions on her arms that needed medical attention.

"I was suffering badly from MRSA .... I (purposefully) came out in the winter in a T-shirt," she wrote.

"She then let the very people that were holding me hover around and listen to everything. I was afraid for my life."

The victim said she was then moved to another house on Cannon Street East, where her husband tracked her down again. There was a confrontation at the house, where her husband broke property and got into a fight with Wheaton.

Her husband claims Hamilton police were dismissive when he contacted them, saying she was "exaggerating" and that she was a "drug addict and prostitute."

The woman said she was "made to feel less than human and almost that I somehow deserved what was happening."

Then they went to Peel police, where they were taken seriously, they said.

The victim and her husband noted they've been told Hamilton police are investigating, but said they don't have much faith in the process.

"It is police investigating police," he said.

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