Cop altered shift schedule to cover up on-duty drinking following subordinate’s impaired driving arrest: tribunal documents

A Toronto Police emblem is shown in Toronto on August 5, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

A Toronto police detective is facing disciplinary charges for allegedly drinking alcohol along with five subordinates while on duty and then altering the listed shift time for members of the team “to cover up the misconduct” after one of them was arrested for impaired driving.

Det. Mark Beson is facing a total of seven disciplinary charges in connection with the alleged misconduct.

Documents obtained by CTV News state that Beson served as supervisor of the Clandestine Lab Team, which consists of five detective constables and is attached to the Toronto Drug Squad.

It alleged that Beson and the entire team were on duty at around noon on Jan. 30, 2023, when they attended a Buffalo Wild Wings located inside the Canlan Ice Sports Centre and consumed alcohol.

The notice of hearing states that Beson and one of his subordinates, Const. Jason Boag, left the bar in a TPS vehicle approximately eight hours later at 8:06 p.m. and returned to a Toronto police building.

About two hours after that, at approximately 10:20 p.m., Boag left the premises in what the tribunal documents described as a “highly intoxicated state” and proceeded to get in his car and drive away.

Boag was subsequently involved in a collision shortly after midnight and was arrested for impaired driving by Ontario Provincial Police, the documents state. He pleaded guilty to the charges in April 2023.

The disciplinary charges against Beson say that he had a “duty to intervene” after witnessing Boag consume alcohol while on duty and later get in a motor vehicle while intoxicated.

The disciplinary charges then go onto allege further misconduct.

The documents state that following Boag’s arrest, the senior detective changed the shift time for members of his team from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The documents suggest that the detective did so “to cover up the misconduct” so that investigators assigned to the TPS’s Professional Standards Unit looking into Boag’s activities would conclude that alcohol wasn’t consumed by Beson or his team while they were on duty.

“You falsely filled out the sign in sheet for you and your entire team that each member started at 7 a.m.. and finished their shift at 3 p.m. You also initialed the sheet for you and your entire team. In doing so, you committed deceit in that you did knowingly make or sign a false statement in a record,” the documents allege.

Beson made his first appearance before the Toronto Police Tribunal on July 25.

CP24 attempted to contact Beson and his lawyer through the Toronto Police Association but has not yet received a response.