Told you so!

Jury rejects Chapman's allegations of police misconduct

By Kevin Rollarson
Thursday, April 30, 2015

It may have taken 13 years for a lawsuit of alleged police misconduct to get to court, but it took only four hours for a Winnipeg jury to boot it out.

A three-man, three-woman, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench civil jury unanimously rejected Alex Chapman’s 2002 lawsuit claiming two Winnipeg police officers and the City of Winnipeg had launched repeated acts of false arrest, harassment and malicious prosecution against him.

The jury had been given 21 questions to decide and they told Justice Herbert Rempel on Thursday that they rejected all allegations made by Chapman against the officers and also awarded no damages to him.

Chapman was first arrested in 2001, when his estranged wife called police and claimed he’d assaulted her. The charges were later dropped when the woman said she made up the story.

Chapman sued the police over it, but he was arrested twice in 2002 when his wife called police again, the first time just days after he launched his lawsuit and the arresting officers worked with the officers he was suing. All criminal charges against Chapman were later dropped.

He made national headlines in 2010 when he filed a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council against Queen’s Bench Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas and her husband, Winnipeg lawyer Jack King.

Chapman claimed he was harassed by them. He said King — his former lawyer — showed him explicit nude photos of Douglas in an attempt to arrange a sexual tryst. Those photos were widely circulated online.

The complaint triggered a well-publicized and controversial formal judicial hearing that was recently scrapped against Douglas when she announced her retirement, effective next month. King was previously sanctioned by the Law Society for his role and has since died.