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First, last Friday, a Toronto judge tossed all charges against two defendants in a high-profile drug case based almost solely on the egregious testimony of an undercover police officer.

On trial was Sandro Lisi, Rob Ford’s former driver and a key player in the crack video scandal that paralyzed Toronto for much of Ford’s mayoral term. As part of a huge investigation into Ford’s entourage, Lisi and another man, a dry cleaner, were arrested in a well-publicized bust and charged with distributing marijuana.

Justice Ramez Khawly found them both not guilty, largely because he did not trust the Crown’s key witness, an undercover police officer. In his two-hour ruling, Khawly hammered away at the credibility of the officer, Ross Fernandes. The judge didn’t quite say he lied on the stand, but he came close, saying he displayed a “persistent pattern of deception.”

“I kept looking for areas where (Fernandes) would shore up his credibility,” Khawly said of the veteran officer, who has since been promoted. “It proved to be a fruitless exercise.”

In the end, he tossed all Fernandes’s evidence and with it, effectively, the case.

A Toronto police officer acting so squirrelly on the stand he torpedoes a high-profile case is bad. What came out Tuesday might have been worse.

In a ruling that seemed to have been almost scripted by carding opponents, Ontario Superior Court Judge Fred Myers awarded a Sudanese refugee $27,000 after Toronto Police stopped him for no reason, roughed him up and left him handcuffed on the icy ground for half an hour before letting him go without charge.