Kidnapping charges thrown out by judge after he rules police used excessive force

A Toronto man charged in connection with a kidnapping case in London had his charges thrown out. CTV’s Nick Paparella explains why.

It’s an alarming court exhibit that shows London Police arresting a Toronto man, who was 19 years of age at the time.

In a London courtroom you can see that officers are in a downtown Richmond Row parking garage on Dec. 8 of 2023.

Police rush to the scene to make the arrest in connection to a kidnapping and extortion scheme over $100,000 in cash that the court heard were proceeds from crime.

The officers involved included, Const. Derek Lacroix and Sgt Andrew Michalski and they believed the man had a gun.

In the video you see the man, who is now 22, getting kicked. He suffers a cracked jaw and loses a tooth.

In court, Justice Kevin McHugh stayed the charges against him ruling that the officer who kicked the suspect deliberately falsified his notes about his use of force.

The judge went on to say that the court must distance itself from this behaviour to maintain its just processes.

Since the charges were thrown out, CTV News is not identifying the accused.

His lawyer, Daniel Rechtshaffen of Toronto said, “It’s unusual for a judge to stay a case involving serious charges.”

He said Justice McHugh had no choice but to throw the charges out saying, “He applied the law in a honest and appropriate way...there’s no choice.”

London Police have since issued a statement saying, “”The service was previously made aware of concerns related to this matter and launched an internal review based on the information available at the time. The Chief’s investigation was subsequently paused pending the conclusion of the criminal proceedings."

Rechtshaffen doesn’t have much confidence in that process saying, “I am not optimistic about a review by the London Police Service, an external body with actual teeth should be reviewing this.”

Meanwhile London defence lawyer Nick Cake says the conduct of the officers involved was staggering because the camera doesn’t lie saying, “They testified falsely about what happened to attempt to justify or potentially explain away what was captured by the video.”

He added, “It’s surprising because it’s an easy lie to catch if the officer is saying one thing, but the objective video evidence is showing another.”