All charges dropped in Toronto Humane Society case

August 16, 2010

Daniel Dale

Charges against former Toronto Humane Society president Tim Trow (pictured in 2009) were dropped on Aug. 16, 2010.

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

The Crown dropped all charges against former Toronto Humane Society president Tim Trow and other former THS leaders on Monday morning.

Crown attorney Christine McGoey told an Old City Hall court that the search warrant obtained by the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for its November 2009 raid on the THS, and the manner in which the OSPCA executed it, involved “several serious breaches” of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

The breaches, she said, included:

• the fact that a justice of the peace had not included an end date on the warrant;

• the OSPCA’s improper use of a Criminal Code section to conduct veterinary checks on THS animals after the raid;

• the “overbreadth” of material seized from the THS shelter on River St. and Trow’s house, which included personnel records, payroll records, adoption records, newspaper articles, thank-you letters and employees’ doctor’s notes;

• the fact that the OSPCA tipped off the media about the raid.

Trow and the other four men charged at the time were handcuffed and led into police cars in view of reporters and photographers.

“The media attendance created additional and unnecessary intrusions and, as a result, is likely to be treated by the court as a serious breach of section 8 of the Charter,” McGoey said.

“There are significant issues related to the good faith exhibited by the OSPCA in the context of the nature, timing and execution of the warrant,” she concluded.

McGoey said the problems with the warrant and the raid would have rendered inadmissible all evidence gathered in the subsequent search.

“If you were trying to design a course at police college on how not to conduct an investigation and search and seizure, this would be it,” said Frank Addario, lawyer for the former THS board members.

Trow’s lawyer, Andras Schreck, said his client is “obviously greatly relieved that these allegations against him have been withdrawn.

“It’s always been and remains Mr. Trow’s position that he’s done absolutely nothing wrong.”

A lawyer for the OSPCA said the organization would comment later Monday.

The charges against Trow and the other senior managers were dismissed in part because the Crown believed the evidence gathered after the raid would be inadmissible. But the Crown also relied in part on the judgment of a little-known provincial body called the Animal Care Review Board, which oversees the OSPCA.

The ACRB reviewed a June 2009 OSPCA inspection of THS animals. The Crown said that the ACRB’s final decision, which concluded that cages were clean, ventilation was adequate, and animals were being fed, would have made it “difficult for the Crown to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that senior officers of the THS willfully permitted animal suffering by failing to exercise reasonable care.”

Trow, former business manager Romeo Bernardino, former operations manager Gary McCracken, and former shelter supervisor Andrew Bechtel were charged with criminal animal cruelty, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, and obstruction of a peace officer. Former chief veterinarian Stephen Sheridan was charged with animal cruelty and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

“Dr. Sheridan is relieved that this has finally come to an end,” said his lawyer, Marie Henein. “Unfortunately it took nine months to get here, and in the course of that, a good man, a veterinarian committed to shelter medicine for 30 years has been vilified, was taken out in handcuffs and paraded. It took him nine months to be vindicated. There is nothing that could take him back to the position he was in nine months ago . . . he has been devastated by this, as has his family.”

A sixth former THS leader, Vijay Kumar, was charged with animal cruelty months later. In addition, the charity’s entire board of directors was charged with non-criminal animal cruelty offences. The charity itself faced criminal charges as a corporation.

“When you look at the way the investigation was conducted, it is a smorgasbord of unconstitutionality, and I don’t think I have ever heard the Crown say ‘serious Charter breach’ so many times when withdrawing a set of charges,” said Scott Hutchison, the lawyer for McCracken.

The charges followed a series of newspaper articles that suggested THS animals were suffering because of Trow’s reluctance to euthanize them, his alleged micromanagement of veterinary decisions, and an alleged shortage of food, medication and staff.

The articles set in motion a chain of events that resulted in the May 2010 election of the current THS board of directors, a group of Trow critics which ran under the name “Faces of Change.” The Crown noted that the flawed investigation produced “positive changes at the THS” that made it unlikely that the conditions that existed under Trow would reoccur.

Outraged animal lovers responded to the articles by demanding an investigation by the OSPCA, a charity empowered by the province to enforce animal cruelty laws. To obtain the search warrant, the OSPCA submitted more than 75 pages of testimony from THS veterinarians, animal care workers and volunteers.

In its statement, the Crown acknowledged problems at the THS under Trow’s leadership. McGoey said there was “evidence to suggest that Mr. Trow was a controlling and dominating president,” that he required staff to check with him before conducting euthanizations, that the shelter was overcrowded under his tenure and that “the treatment, cleaning, feedings, and appropriate decisions to euthanize were often delayed and there ay have been shortages of some medications.”

However, she said, “this evidence would be highly contested.” In addition, she said, a challenge to the charges on “abuse of process” grounds would have made prosecution additionally difficult.

The Crown’s move is likely to intensify public criticism of the OSPCA, which became embroiled in a controversy of its own in May when it euthanized 99 animals after an outbreak of ringworm at its York Region shelter in Newmarket. Last week, it announced that former Ontario Veterinary College dean Alan Meek and former Ontario Superior Court chief justice Patrick LeSage would lead a review of its handling of that case.

Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees has tabled a legislative motion seeking to increase government authority over the OSPCA. He also wants the OSPCA’s animal care functions separated into a separate entity from its animal cruelty enforcement functions.