Absolute discharge for Nunavik’s former police chief

Brian Jones answers a call at the Kativik Regional Police Force offices in Kuujjuaq before his firing by the Kativik Regional Government as police chief in September 2006. (FILE PHOTO)

Brian Jones of Kuujjuaraapik can now move on with his life.

On March 1 the former police chief of the Kativik Regional Police Force pled guilty to a charge of breach of trust in the Kuujjuaraapik courtroom, settling a long-standing court case.

Jones received an absolute discharge for this offense. He was asked to pay $1,200 to the Quebec-government administered fund that banks the proceeds of crime seized by police.

In an absolute discharge, no conviction occurs, but the offender is required to fulfill certain conditions as part of the sentence.

During her judgment, Judge Lise Gagnon of Quebec’s itinerant court said that there was no proof of any fraud in Jones’ handling of a bank account that contained money collected from drug trafficking and bootlegging operations in Nunavik.

The court found that Jones had used that money from proceeds of crime in Nunavik – about $90,000 to help people in the region or to fight crime.

Gagnon said that Jones acted a bit like “Robin Hood” in his use of money, and could be called “Robin Tundra.”

Half the money collected as proceeds of crime in Nunavik should have been returned to Quebec, although the Kativik Regional Government was lobbying at that time to keep that money in the region.

The KRG was aware that the KRPF was using money to help victims of crimes or pay for anonymous tips, the court determined.

Jones didn’t keep a tight accounting of how that money was spent.

Jones will be able to receive an automatic pardon for the discharge within a year, said Jones’ lawyer, Jacques Stuart.

The plea was the next best thing to being acquitted, he said.

And Jones could no longer afford to fight the case in court.

Jones’s wife, Penny Jones, was acquitted on a similar charge.

During the court proceedings, no evidence was produced showing Jones put any money into his pockets, Stuart said.

The KRG regional council fired Jones in September, 2006, ending his 14 years of service with the KRPF.

Before he was fired in 2006, Jones told Nunatsiaq News that he regularly paid informants for information about drug and alcohol traffickers.

But after a complaint from the KRG following his dismissal, Jones was charged under Sec. 122 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which says: “every official who, in connection with the duties of his office, commits fraud or a breach of trust is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, whether or not the fraud or breach of trust would be an offence if it were committed in relation to a private person.”

Conflict between Jones and the KRG had escalated and became increasingly public, from early 2006 until he was fired, with the KRG voicing concern over the KRPF’s budget overruns, its administrative problems and focus on fighting drug trafficking and bootlegging in the region.

In the spring of 2006, the KRG executive asked its police force to cut costs by ending its involvement in the anti-drug Aboriginal Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which is based out of Montreal, to focus more on community policing.

But Jones said cutting drug operations wasn’t the way to save money or fight crime, because southern Quebec is the main pipeline for narcotics into Nunavik; possession of drugs and trafficking are crimes; and they are the biggest cause of social problems, unrest and poverty in the region, he maintained.

The Sûreté du Québec provincial police force arrived in Nunavik later in 2006 to maintain order after Jones was fired and it surfaced that few members of the KRPF had been properly sworn in.

The SQ remained in Nunavik until early 2007.