THE CANADIAN PRESS
REGINA - A Saskatchewan Mountie who alleges she was sexually harassed by a male supervisor has settled with the force over the way the matter was handled.
Laura Lehne said Tuesday that she's signed an agreement for an undisclosed sum that will see her drop legal action against the RCMP, including a complaint she filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Lehne, who has been on unpaid leave for the last two years, said she's also decided to quit the force.
"I didn't want to work for that organization anymore," she said. "I'd rather work for a better employer and move on and get on with my life and put this nightmare behind me."
Lehne, 32, filed a complaint against another officer when the two served at the detachment in Buffalo Narrows, Sask., in 2004.
She alleged the officer started making offensive and sexually explicit comments about her, then punished her after she filed her complaint by denying her backup in the field, taking her off training courses and changing her shift assignments.
But the case was dismissed in March 2009.
An RCMP review panel said it had no choice but to reject the complaint because the case took too long to be heard. The former head of the RCMP in Saskatchewan also missed by one month the deadline to file the necessary paperwork needed to deal with the complaint.
The allegations against the officer were not proven in court or in internal RCMP proceedings. The officer continues to serve and was recently promoted.
However, Chief Superintendent Garry Jay said Tuesday that while the panel didn't get to hear details of the allegations, there was merit to the case.
"Throughout this whole matter there has not been any point in time when the RCMP didn't indicate that the allegations made by Ms. Lehne in relation to her original harassment complaint were anything other than founded," said Jay.
"There was a number of allegations made in the complaint, I think there was a series of five or six, of which at least two were determined at the time to be founded. That continues to be our position that those were in fact founded."
Jay has admitted errors were made in handling Lehne's case, noting the RCMP should have handled the complaint within one year. He told The Canadian Press in an interview Tuesday that it's not the time frame that needed to be changed, but how the force monitors cases.
Lehne had called for changes to the system.
"I think this whole thing has cast a bad image on the RCMP, but hopefully they will do what they say and they will change their policy and procedures."
