Military police 'rushed to judgment' before officer's suicide, watchdog finds

Canada's armed services law guard dog issued a vituperative cover on Thursday over the handling of an investigation into an air force officer who was charged with sexual assault and later took his own life in early 2022.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Maj. Cristian Hiestand told his family no one would listen to his side of the story after being charged with assaulting a woman with whom he had just ended a relationship.

The chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission (MPCC), Tammy Tremblay, in a report released Thursday, found that Hiestand did have an opportunity to speak to investigators, but declined on the advice of his lawyer.

But Tremblay found military police did not conduct an "impartial and thorough investigation" and overall the investigation suffered from a "rush to judgment and confirmation bias."

It also lacked supervisory oversight, failed to probe critical issues such as consent, failed to pursue critical witness interviews and failed to review text messages between the alleged victim and accused.

Tremblay said the investigation was marked by undue haste in arresting and charging Hiestand.

The report comes at a time when the Liberal government's long-promised legislation to address sexual misconduct in the military is facing pushback from some victims, former military officials and opposition parties.

The bill aims to strip the military of its power to investigate and prosecute sexual assault cases. If passed, only civilian police and judges would be allowed to handle these criminal offences.

In the Hiestand case, the MPCC received three separate complaints about military police conduct. It carried out a public interest hearing and broke its findings up into two separate reports.

The first report dealt with the handling of the case. 

The second examined how the military police detachment at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw, Sask., dealt with the complaint. In that instance, a former military police officer asked for the MPCC investigation into his former colleagues.

The watchdog found several instances of wrongdoing by the leadership of the military police detachment on the night the alleged sexual assault was reported.

It found that military police failed to record the interview with the alleged victim, one of the supervisors involved was drunk at the time and a person potentially involved in the case was allowed to sit in while police took the woman's statement.

The final MPCC report made 13 recommendations related to the Hiestand investigation and four about the conduct of military police officers.

All of them are meant to improve Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigative practices around sexual assault cases, and included better training on identifying and interviewing witnesses and handling digital evidence. There was also a proposal to require investigators to consult with prosecutors before laying charges in sexual assault cases, among other things.

According to the MPCC, the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal rejected all 13 recommendations related to the handling of the Hiestand investigation and only one-out-of-four related to the conduct of the CFB Moose Jaw detachment.

"It is deeply concerning that all but one of the recommendations in these final reports were not accepted," Tremblay said in a statement "This shows a lack of accountability for the shortcomings identified in this investigation."

Hiestand took his own life on Jan. 18, 2022, a little more than a month after being arrested. A military board of inquiry concluded that Hiestand, a pilot instructor at the airbase, was deemed by medical staff as a "moderate" suicide risk, but there was little formal follow-up by his superiors.

A month before taking his own life, the Afghan war veteran and career military man was charged with two counts of sexual assault days after he'd ended a tumultuous relationship with a civilian woman.

The charges against Hiestand were laid by military police in provincial court in Saskatchewan less than a week after he broke off the relationship and within five days of authorities receiving a complaint from the civilian in question.

At the time of his arrest, he told investigators that he had text messages with the alleged victim that would exonerate him which they should look at before charging him. Military police refused, but did offer to take a statement, which Hiestand declined on the advice of his lawyer.

Hiestand was removed from duty after being charged and was ordered to have no contact with the complainant and several of his co-workers at the air base in Moose Jaw. The military ordered him off the base and told him to work remotely.

The Department of National Defence launched an internal professional conduct investigation into the actions of the military police officers who handled Hiestand's case.

It took almost two years, but the internal investigation cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing.

A report by the Office of Professional Standards of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, dated Feb. 9, 2024, concluded that complaints made by Hiestand's family were "not substantiated."

The officers involved insist that their investigation was not conducted hastily.

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Senior reporter, defence and security

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