Plenty of times in the past decade, Paul Manning was sure he'd reached the end.

During his early days as an undercover Hamilton cop, for instance, when he says he was marched down a narrow staircase into a dark basement followed by three members of a crime family, certain he was about to take a bullet to the head.

Or standing alone and defenceless outside a James Street bar, when he realized his cover had been blown as he fought off four attackers trying to kill him.

Or there were the darker periods that followed, when he put his service pistol in his mouth and thought of pulling the trigger. Or when he intentionally crashed his police cruiser into a pole, hoping to chase his demons away once and for all.

Now, in an extraordinary lawsuit, Manning and his spouse, Sabina, are seeking $6.75 million in damages, $4.5 million of which they seek from Hamilton police, alleging the police service failed to protect him and his family, effectively ending his career. Sabina Manning claims the police had a "duty of care" to her husband that should have been "extended to her."

The couple is also seeking $2.25 million from the OPP.

Manning, an experienced undercover officer trained in England, alleges the cover team working with him during an infiltration of organized crime lacked proper training and there was no "structured exit strategy" for him and his spouse.

Those failures, he alleges, led to mental health issues and suicidal thoughts he shared with peers and superiors — yet no one asked him to turn in his gun.

Manning is unable to work due to chronic post-traumatic stress and is unlikely to return to police work.

He is also suspended due to pending police act charges stemming from a threat he allegedly made to a lawyer for the Hamilton Police Association, the police union.

Among the many jaw-dropping claims in the lawsuit, Manning alleges his identity was revealed by a high-ranking police colleague to a Hamilton crime family because Manning's undercover work was close to exposing his fellow officer's criminal activity. The officer, Manning alleges, asked the crime family to "scare off" Manning.

What is most extraordinary about Manning's lawsuit is its long list of explosive allegations of police corruption in Hamilton, which Manning claims to have learned about from his police duties and undercover work, including his network of informants, two of whom have since died violently.

"He was born to be a cop, he was born to help people," said Paul Manning's wife, Sabina. It is highly unusual for police officers in Ontario to sue their own service and just as unusual for police officers to make public allegations about the misbehaviour of colleagues.

"This is a way of punishing them," Manning said in an interview, "because there is no other way I can punish them."

His wife, Sabina, supports the allegations "a hundred per cent," she said in an interview.

"He was born to be a cop, he was born to help people," she added. "And they destroyed it."

None of Manning's allegations have been proven in court.

The Spectator and the Toronto Star have made efforts wherever possible to obtain documents and gather information in attempts to substantiate Manning's allegations but many of his claims cannot be independently verified. He and his wife are representing themselves without a lawyer.

The Spectator and the Star have elected to remove many of the names in the suit because of the serious and personal nature of the unproven allegations.

Lloyd Ferguson, chair of the Hamilton Police Services Board, said he could not comment on Manning's statement of claim because the matter is before the court.

"The board has given legal counsel direction to vigorously defend it," said Ferguson, councillor for Ancaster.

Asked if he has faith in the police service and its members, Ferguson replied simply, "Of course I do."

Hamilton's police services board is going to court in an attempt to have Manning's lawsuit tossed out, arguing his claims should be dealt with as union grievances.

In its motion, Hamilton police calls Manning's allegations "scandalous, frivolous or vexatious or are otherwise an abuse of the process of the court."

The board, which has filed a notice of intent to defend the lawsuit, also alleges Manning's claims of "injury to reputation" are an attempt to "dress up a defamation claim."

The Ministry of the Attorney General did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the OPP allegations.

The lawsuit names many names — informants, police officers and a few targets of a decade-old police operation into illegal gambling that included crime family members along with a couple of Hamilton public figures.

AMONG MANNING'S CLAIMS IN HIS LAWSUIT:

Hamilton police officers fraudulently claimed reward money from Crime Stoppers, and others were involved in "ripping off" drug dealers and marijuana grow operations.

Two officers "have been 'on the take' since the '80s." They would pay reward money to a relative and then split the proceeds.

A senior Hamilton officer sold information about the investigation into the unsolved 1998 murders of criminal lawyer Lynn Gilbank and her husband, Fred. It's believed Gilbank may have been the subject of a gangland hit at her Ancaster home, and that her husband was killed because he was there.

Several Hamilton police officers have ties to organized crime and the Hells Angels. Manning also names a Toronto police officer he alleges was selling guns to Toronto gang members.

He and his wife were falsely detained and their rural home subject to an improper search by Hamilton police, who told him they had received a tip and came looking for a marijuana grow operation.

More than 20 officers showed up but no grow op was found. What police did find and take from his safe without issuing a receipt, Manning alleges, were personal notebooks detailing his undercover activities.

Manning has made a court application to have the search warrant unsealed and his notebooks released.

An off-duty Hamilton police officer frequented an illegal basement "booze can" operated by a member of the Hells Angels, where cocaine was openly "snorted off the bar."

In an interview, Manning said the lawsuit is not about money but about making public what he says happened to him and how he was treated by the Hamilton Police Service.

He says his mental health has suffered and that he has engaged in some reckless, dangerous and self-destructive acts since the night in 2006 when his cover was compromised.

Once, during a routine traffic stop, Manning admits pointing his handgun at the driver when he had a flashback and mistakenly thought it was one of the men who tried to kill him. On another occasion, he admits pulling his gun and pointing it at the head of a fellow officer who was standing on the other side of his front door.

While Manning's allegations are unproven, he has clearly been damaged by his police work, according to psychologists' reports. What is also true is that, in filing such a lawsuit, Manning has broken with a police code of not speaking out.

Still to be answered is a central question. Is Paul Manning a whistleblower taking on his police service, or is he a person lashing out at his employer with alarming, unsubstantiated claims?

What follows is based on medical letters, documents, interviews, news reports and Manning's unproven allegations in his lawsuit.

On Aug. 9, 2010, Manning was alone on patrol in a marked cruiser, at a time, he says, when he often thought about harming himself and others. He drove into a hydro pole and was charged with careless driving. Paul Manning, 42, grew up in Accrington, a suburb of Blackburn in northwest England.

He began his policing career in the U.K. in 1993 and, according to his lawsuit, he worked for numerous law enforcement agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Service in London.

He says he worked in special squads, including a stint in Belfast combating IRA terrorism.

In 2004, Manning and his wife were eyeing a move to Canada. He interviewed for jobs in Hamilton and in Toronto, and ultimately accepted an offer from Hamilton police.

The couple moved to Canada in early April 2005. Manning went to Ontario Police College, where he won an award for highest grades, and then, after a half-day use-of-force training, stepped right into the role of undercover officer.

Almost immediately, according to his lawsuit, he was making drug buys from the likes of brothers Thomas and Shane Riordan, who in 2006 would kill a man over a drug deal gone bad.

Manning was quickly assigned to infiltrate the Hamilton Mob and investigate illegal gambling. Using the alias Paul Wright, Manning says he gained the trust of crime family members as well as members of the Hamilton Hells Angels chapter.

In a November 2005 memo to Hamilton police human resources, the lawsuit states, a supervisor called Manning "one of the best" undercover officers, and was able to infiltrate "individuals and groups that other officers have been unable to get close to."

In one incident he was put to the test. In an interview, Manning said one of his targets made it known that he had a "job" for him and asked him to come to a house. Manning feared that might mean the Mob was preparing to kill him, and he warned his police team.

When Manning entered, the door was bolted behind him. Two large men he had never seen before were there.

He was told to head to the darkened basement, followed by three men, and that he'd find a light switch.

"My knees are going, legs are going," Manning said. "I think I'm going to get done in the back of the head."

He switched on the light to reveal a freshly renovated basement apartment.

"We want you to live here. Come and live with us," he recalls being told.

When he left, he spotted his cover team in a nearby parking lot, ready to storm the house, fearing he was going to be killed.

Instead, Manning told his police handler: "We're in."

While Manning, for safety reasons, never did move in, he had passed the test with flying colours.

According to the suit, on March 24, 2006, while undercover, Manning was standing outside a bar on James Street North when he was approached by four men, including the Riordan brothers, Thomas and Shane.

"Hey cop," Thomas said to Manning, the suit states, and then "without warning" the four men started hitting Manning.

Manning, according to the suit, ran to his undercover apartment, called his police handler and was told to "wait there for extraction." The handler called back to say the men were gone and that a marked cruiser was on scene.

When Manning emerged, there was no police car, the suit states. The four men were there, armed with knives, and one of them "purporting to have a gun in his pocket."

The suit states he fought them for about 10 minutes before getting back inside. One attempt to stab him was close enough to cut through his T-shirt. Manning alleges a member of his police cover team drove by during the second attack and did not stop to help.

The suit alleges an OPP officer seized the ripped T-shirt as evidence of an attempted murder, but no charges were ever laid.

Manning remained undercover. "I stayed because I wanted to. I knew the risks," he said in an email. He said he was very cautious but "I also know this was the undercover job of the decade."

He also said he felt he'd been sold out but was told "I was being a little paranoid."

He began to have night terrors, according to the suit. At one point, he claims his cover team "lost" him and phoned his wife to see if he had returned home.

In the lawsuit, Paul Manning's wife alleges all of her husband's mental health issues stem from the job and that police "did nothing to assist" the couple. In fall 2006, Manning, according to his claim, learned an OPP officer had lost a laptop and notebook containing details of the police operation looking into illegal gambling, including Manning's involvement and his personal details.

With that, the operation was over. Manning and his wife fled their home and received spotty "armed protection" from police, he claims. For his own protection, police provided Manning with his service pistol to carry at all times, his lawsuit states.

It was also around this time that Manning, "on at least three separate occasions … put his service firearm in his mouth with intent" to kill himself, the suit states.

Manning, the lawsuit states, shared his thoughts of self-harm with both the service and the Hamilton Police Association. The service, according to the suit, ordered Manning to see a Toronto psychologist but Manning alleges the sessions made his condition worse because it appeared the service had been briefing the psychologist.

No one, the suit claims, "relieved him of his firearm."

Manning took to sleeping at the front door, with his service pistol in his hand and his feet planted against the bottom of the door, his suit claims.

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At the end of October 2006, Manning says in his suit that he learned the Riordan brothers were suspected of killing 22-year-old Michael Walsh.

On Oct. 11, 2006, while in bed in a rented room above a Waterdown tavern, Walsh was clubbed with a candlestick, stabbed and shot. In 2009, the Riordan brothers admitted their involvement in what the judge described as the "assassination" of a helpless man.

Thomas Riordan received a life sentence for second-degree murder, while Shane received seven years for manslaughter.

Manning alleges that Hamilton police are "indirectly responsible" for Walsh's death, since they never charged the Riordans with attempted murder in the attack on him six months earlier.

In January 2007, Manning alleges in his suit, a supervisor urged him to "be careful" and that he had been "sold out" while working undercover.

That April, he started as a uniformed patrol officer in Stoney Creek. His depression and nightmares worsened and twice he placed his gun in his mouth, he says in his suit.

Not long after, Manning claims he was in a meeting with a high-ranking police officer and a representative from the police association.

Near the end of the meeting, Manning says in his suit, he raised Walsh's murder because he felt guilt over it and "how he wanted to tell the Walsh family the same."

The suit claims the senior officer told him to be "careful what you say, because one day you might call 10-78 and nobody comes" — a reference to the radio code for an officer in need of assistance.

Manning wanted to find out how the Riordans knew he was a cop.

He alleges he met with one of his informants, Lou Malone, a former Hells Angels enforcer who would be gunned down on Kenilworth Avenue in 2013.

In his lawsuit, Manning alleges Malone told him that Insp. Rick Wills, the disgraced former head of Hamilton's vice and drugs unit, had "sold him out" to a Hamilton crime family, which led to the attack by the Riordans. "Wills was worried about Mr. Manning's infiltration turning up aspects of his years of criminal wrongdoing," Manning alleges in his suit.

Wills pleaded guilty in 2010 to fraud for stealing $60,000 of drug-bust money and ultimately served time in jail. Wills, the suit alleges, wanted the crime family to "scare off" Manning so he wouldn't delve into Wills' activities.

Manning alleges he shared this information with a superior, according to the lawsuit.

Wills declined to comment about Manning's allegations.

Another of Manning's informants was Steven Josipovic. He would later die of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head on Feb. 7, 2011, according to the lawsuit.

Throughout 2010, Josipovic provided information to Manning, the claim states, that Hamilton officers were involved in a steroid-trafficking ring connected to a convicted bodybuilder.

Paul Manning alleges his informant, Lou Malone, a former Hells Angels enforcer, told him that disgraced cop Rick Wills had "sold him out" to a Hamilton crime family. The informant also alleged a Toronto police officer was selling guns to gang members in Toronto. Manning again passed the information along to superiors.

By 2010, Manning's mental health continued to deteriorate. According to his suit, he became manic during an argument with his wife, who sought a restraining order and started divorce proceedings. (The Mannings remain together and have three children.)

In the suit, Manning's wife alleges all of her husband's mental health issues stem from the job and that police "did nothing to assist" the couple.

"He pretty much stopped being a husband to me," Sabina said in an interview. "He was there physically but emotionally, he would drown a lot."

On August 9, 2010, Manning was alone on patrol in a marked cruiser, at a time, according to his lawsuit, when he was "constantly" thinking of killing himself, and of harming others.

"I turned left on to King Street, I took my seatbelt off and I just accelerated," he said.

The speedometer climbed past 70 km/h as the cruiser mounted a curb and, according to the suit, drove directly "into a large hydro pole," shearing it in two. His head struck the windshield.

"I sort of felt justified in what I had done," he said in an interview.

"I'd destroyed $40,000 worth of police equipment and … it was like a sigh of relief. I just assumed at that point that I'm not supposed to kill myself."

Insp. Rick Wills pleaded guilty in 2010 to fraud for stealing drug-bust money and ultimately served time in jail. Manning was charged with careless driving — and he remained on the job.

In October 2013, Manning was diagnosed with "severe post-traumatic stress disorder directly linked" to the 2006 attempt on his life while working undercover.

After a followup assessment, Manning's psychologist advised in a letter that it would be a risk to Manning, "the public and the Department if he attempts to go back to policing."

On March 2, 2014, Manning alleges he had a lawyer serve a "notice of intent" to sue on Chief Glenn De Caire. A couple of weeks later, the suit states, Manning got a call from a Hamilton police firearms officer who advised that his firearms licence had expired, and in a second call asked that his guns be turned over.

Manning agreed that they be seized and two officers came to his house to retrieve the weapons on March 19, 2014, according to the suit.

The next day, Manning claims, 21 uniformed Hamilton officers showed up at his house with a warrant for a "grow op."

Police searched the house but left without searching outbuildings and much of his large property, some of which is treed and could have hidden a grow op, the suit states. No grow op was found.

Officers, the suit states, said the search was based on an "anonymous phone call and a high hydro bill."

"I've gotten more with less," one officer told Manning, according to the suit.

Police, Manning alleges in the suit, rifled through drawers, boxes of clothing and "had been into his safe," where he stored five notebooks, which, he said in an interview, contained crucial details that support his claims. When he was allowed back inside, he claims the books were missing from the safe.

Lloyd Ferguson, chair of the Hamilton Police Services Board said "The board has given legal counsel direction to vigorously defend" the lawsuit. In May 2014, the suit states, the Hamilton Police Association asked for any paperwork relating to his workplace woes to ensure the union had done its "due diligence." He later received a letter from an association lawyer that was "full of intentional factual errors."

In February 2015, Manning sent an email demanding an apology. The email said if no retraction was received, "I will attend" the lawyer's Toronto home and "obtain one under duress."

That led to another unannounced search of the house, for computers and firearms, the suit states. Manning was arrested and charged with threatening bodily harm to the lawyer and unsafe storage of a firearm.

The case made the news. Manning told The Spectator at the time that the email was not intended as a threat but was "hugely inappropriate and borne out of frustration."

In June 2015, the criminal charges against him were withdrawn. In exchange, Manning signed a peace bond and was banned from owning a firearm for five years.

Three months later, Manning's suit says, he was officially "informed by WSIB that he would never be returning to policing."

Manning remains suspended and still faces police act charges.

He now spends his days helping to look after the children and peering out the windows of his house and up the long driveway to a country road. On some days, lone vehicles that he says don't belong sit there.

"He always wanted to be a police officer and he was an amazing cop," said Sabina. "I'm not just saying that because I'm his wife.

"He is — well, he was — a good cop. He knew his job, he knew exactly what he was doing, he was confident."

She now wants to leave Canada. In fact, she's sorry they ever came.

"Do you know how hard it is to get up every day and believe that there are Canadians that are good?" she asked.

She has a name for the part of him that feels compelled to speak up: "Stupid Paul."

With that, Paul Manning shares a regret. In speaking up to superiors, he broke the police code.