STELLARTON, N.S. - Nova Scotia's justice minister is denying he looked the other way when allegations surfaced that RCMP officers under his command when he was a Mountie took part in sex parties that included drug use.
Ross Landry, who was an RCMP staff sergeant in rural Pictou County, told a Nova Scotia Police Review Board hearing Tuesday he was aware of the allegations and they were being investigated by his superiors.
Landry was testifying at the hearing into the 2008 dismissal of Stellarton's former police chief, Ambrose Heighton. He maintains he was wrongly fired amid allegations he wrote an unsigned letter that made claims about the parties.
The letter, which Heighton denies writing, alleges RCMP officers and their spouses participated in sex parties where cocaine was used. It also alleges a female officer had an affair with the wife of another officer, and that some officers used or stored their weapons improperly.
None of the allegations in the letter has been proven.
Landry said after he saw the letter in the fall of 2007, he inquired with his superiors about how it was being dealt with and was told it was being addressed.
He said he understood the investigation "was not my business."
The Pictou detachment was made up of about 35 officers and Landry was in charge of it from 2005 until 2009. He was elected to the legislature in June 2009 and appointed justice minister.
In his testimony, Landry referred to an Oct. 9, 2007, letter from the Justice Department that explained how an RCMP superintendent had reviewed Landry's handling of the case.
"He has found nothing which would support that ... Landry failed to take appropriate supervisory action relative to any of the noted events," it says.
The letter says Landry ordered a code of conduct review in relation to one of the allegations "and conveyed certain information ... long before chief Heighton's allegations arose."
It says "our administrative review conducted prior to the code of conduct being ordered determined from two independent witnesses that there was no cocaine used at the party."
The letter was written in response to the allegations Heighton had forwarded to the Justice Department, and notes that Heighton alleged Landry had ignored the issues when they were brought to his attention.
The original letter that Heighton forwarded to the Justice Department was entered into evidence Monday at the start of the hearing in Stellarton.
The hearing was told there appeared to be a lot of animosity between Landry and Heighton -- a claim Landry denied in an interview on Monday with CTV.
The hearing has heard that an RCMP staff sergeant from internal services began an administrative review into the allegations by speaking with the Justice Department, Heighton and Delaney Chisholm, New Glasgow's deputy police chief.
The officer said he never asked Heighton if he wrote the unsigned letter, but assumed he did, as he tried to determine who the source was for the allegations.
