The prison guard’s face is a portrait of concentration. His eyes are focused and the tip of his tongue sticks out. Correctional officer Darin Gough appears unaware the phone he holds is actually taking his photo as he stares intently at the screen.

The phone belonged to Tammy Truesdell. She was visiting Jason Lauzon, who is serving a life sentence at the Bath Institution, a medium-security prison near Kingston, Ont. Truesdell had left her phone in the car, as required, while Gough and a drug-sniffing dog checked the vehicle as part of a random search of anyone visiting the prison on Feb. 17, 2016.

Truesdell was sent the photo of Gough in an email with the subject line: “Someone tried to unlock your Hangouts!” The picture was snapped automatically by her smartphone, which is equipped with a security application — CM Security AppLock — that takes an “Intruder Selfie” when someone incorrectly enters its four-digit passcode twice, then emails it to the phone’s owner. The photo of Gough was taken after two unsuccessful attempts to open Truesdell’s Hangouts application, which is used to send and receive text messages.

When Truesdell saw the email with Gough’s photo later that evening, the 51-year-old Kingston resident recognized him as the guard who had searched her at the prison. She said she was shocked. “Then I was mad.”

That night she called Lauzon, who she considers her husband although they are not legally married, and told him what happened. He filed a complaint through the prison’s internal grievance system.

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Visitors to the prison are subject to a search of their person, and in some cases their vehicles, but guards do not have the right to search the contents of their phones.

Lauzon’s complaints went nowhere, even after Truesdell provided prison management with the photo of Gough. Prison officials told Lauzon that Gough denied trying to unlock the phone, telling him that Gough said he must have inadvertently triggered the selfie function while moving the phone into the glove compartment to ensure it wasn’t damaged by the drug-sniffing dog.

Frustrated by the lack of acknowledgment from prison officials in the face of what Lauzon calls “unequivocal photographic evidence,” he is taking the government to court.

Lauzon is not suing prison officials or seeking any damages, but he is asking the Federal Court to review the Correctional Service of Canada’s internal handling of his grievance. Lauzon says all he ever wanted was an acknowledgement of what happened and an apology.

Lauzon’s lawyer admits his client’s case is, on its face, relatively minor. But it’s important, Paul Quick said, “because it clearly illustrates the dynamic that allows prison staff to commit abuses and act outside the law without fear of being held accountable.”

A spokesperson for the Correctional Service of Canada declined to comment, saying it would be “inappropriate” while the matter was “before the courts.” The government has yet to file its response to Lauzon’s application.

Truesdell said she didn’t think she and Lauzon were asking for much. “I just want (Gough) to say, ‘OK, I done it. OK, I got caught. I’m sorry,’ and carry on like decent people. They’re believing him and I have an actual picture that clearly shows different.”

Gough did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Lauzon, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1995 fatal stabbing of a drug dealer in Ottawa, states in his affidavit that when he raised the issue with Gough’s supervisor, Assistant Warden Tim Hamilton responded with what Lauzon describes as “thinly veiled threats.”

He says Hamilton told him if he ever wanted to be transferred to a minimum-security facility he should “keep (his) head down, stay off the radar and don’t flood us with paperwork.”

Hamilton did not respond to emailed interview requests and a spokesperson for the Correctional Service declined an interview on his behalf.

Most grievances within the prison system are simply the prisoner’s word against staff, said Quick, who works for the Queen’s Prison Law Clinic in Kingston. What’s different in this case is the photo. “The word of a guard will not only be believed over that of a prisoner, but will be accepted over any and all other evidence, no matter how objective and compelling,” he said.

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Quick said the federal correctional service has shown itself “time and time again” to be “fundamentally incapable of acknowledging wrongdoing.”

He cited a 1996 report by Justice Louise Arbour, written prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada, which said the prison grievance process “has no chance of success unless there is a significant change in the mindset of the Correctional Service towards being prepared to admit error without feeling that it is conceding defeat.”

Quick said little has changed since then and Lauzon’s case shows how prison management fosters “a culture of impunity,” which in turn undermines public safety.

“It sends prisoners the message that it is not the law that matters, but simply power and the ability to get away with it.”