Elgin OPP cleared of “racial prejudice”

After a lengthy investigation, Independent Police Review Director Gerry McNeilly has come to the conclusion that an Elgin County Ontario Provincial Police investigation of an October 2013 sex attack on a Bayham woman that used DNA canvassing of almost 100 migrant workers “was not motivated by racial prejudice.”

Mr. McNeilly’s decision was contained in an over 100 page report that included findings and recommendations including having the OPP develop a policy to govern how and when DNA canvasses are conducted.

The Elgin OPP investigation eventually led to the November 2013 arrest and later conviction of a 36-year-old male migrant worker from Trinidad.

The man, now 38, was sentenced to seven years in prison in June 2014 after he plead guilty to sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and uttering death threats.

Justicia for Migrant Workers filed a formal complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director in December 2013 that accused the Elgin OPP of using racial profiling and other questionable practices in their investigation of the sexual assault on the woman who was home alone at the time east of Vienna.