OTTAWA—A prosecution lawyer at the sentencing hearing for Ottawa Police Service (OPS) detective Helen Grus argued that the defence was improperly trying to relitigate issues already decided in the case.
During final submissions on June 18, OPS prosecutor Jessica Barrow said Grus’s lawyers were effectively asking presiding officer Chris Renwick to disregard his prior findings and the established facts of the case by rearguing issues surrounding privacy and whistleblower protections.
“This is concerning,” Barrow said, referring to the closing presentations made by the defence on May 21.
“The submissions ask you to ignore your rulings and findings of fact,” she said. “The submissions ask you to ignore the law ... the submissions ask you to ignore reality.”
Grus investigated the sudden deaths of nine Ottawa children by accessing OPS files without recording her action. The OPS also says Grus contacted the father of a deceased infant to ask about the COVID-19 vaccination status of his wife, without the knowledge of the lead detective on the case.
In a recording from an internal police investigation played in court in 2023, Grus said she started investigating the infant deaths because she believed there could be a link to COVID-19 vaccination and because she felt her concerns were being dismissed within the police service.
The OPS is seeking a 24-month demotion for Grus, while the defence has argued for a lighter sentence.
At the May 21 sentencing hearing, Grus’s lawyer, Bath-Shéba van den Berg, argued that her client’s actions did not constitute a breach of privacy because the information sought was neither used for personal reasons nor shared outside the police service.
Speaking at the sentencing hearing on June 18, Barrow rejected that argument, saying prior case law establishes that “accessing sensitive and personal information for improper reasons is an intrusion on that person’s privacy.”
“It may well be that the searches were not strictly personal in nature, in that they did not strictly relate to the officer’s personal life … but the searches were not necessary or appropriate, and the reason they were not necessary or appropriate is because they were driven by personal biases and convictions,” Barrow said.
Van den Berg had also argued that Grus was acting as a whistleblower investigating potential child deaths from COVID-19 vaccines, which meant her actions should be viewed more leniently.
Barrow further argued that much of the defence’s submission amounted to an improper attempt to reopen findings Renwick already made.
“You made a ruling. It is binding. Those findings of misconduct and findings of fact are then the basis upon which a disposition is premised,” Barrow said.
Following Barrow’s submissions, van den Berg said the prosecution had been given an “unfair advantage” by having an additional month to prepare its response.
Van den Berg noted that, on May 21, the prosecution had said they would need five hours for her reply, which was why Renwick chose to resume the hearing on June 18.
“I trusted that my friend needed those five hours, and she took an hour and a half this morning, actually, and so her reply could have been done and executed on May 21,” van den Berg said.
Barrow replied that she never said she needed five hours, only that there was a “possibility I would run over the very small amount of time we had left to complete my reply, and I didn’t want to have to stop in the middle of it.”
