The commander of the Canadian military police says withholding a soldierâs suicide note from his family was âinexcusable,â in the wake of a scathing report that highlighted major flaws in the investigation of Cpl. Stuart Langridgeâs death.
Canadian Forces Provost Marshal, Col. Rob Delaney, offered âsincere apologiesâ to Langridgeâs parents and said the decision to keep the suicide note under wraps for over a year was âclearlyâ a mistake.
, Delaney also apologized to Sheila and Shaun Fynes for âfailing to live up to their expectationsâ when they demanded an investigation.
The Military Police Complaints Commission released Tuesday its and the way the military conducted its investigation.
The MPCC report found no evidence of intentional bias in the militaryâs investigation, but concluded that it was marred by mistakes, incompetence, poor planning, and inadequate supervision.
The military also made serious errors in the way it dealt with Langridgeâs family, the report found. MPCC chair Glenn Stannard told a news conference Tuesday that the soldierâs suicide note was âwrongly withheldâ from his family for 14 months, for reasons that were never properly explained.
The report makes 46 recommendations, aimed at improving the quality and supervision of military police investigations and strengthening the military policeâs independence.
But the MPCC says the vast majority of them were either rejected or ignored by National Defence â a response Langridgeâs mother called âcondescending and arrogant.â
Langridge, who served tours of duty in Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia, took his own life at CFB Edmonton in 2008 after struggling for years with drug and alcohol abuse. His struggles were later thought to be related to post-traumatic stress disorder, but no formal diagnosis was ever made.
After his death, Langridgeâs mother and stepfather launched a formal complaint, alleging that the military police investigation of their sonâs suicide was mishandled and that National Defence tried to cover up its poor treatment of Langridge.
Following two other investigations related to Langridgeâs death and his parentsâ complaints, Sheila and Shaun Fynes went to the MPCC and made a total of 39 allegations against the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, the branch of military police that investigates serious crimes and sensitive matters.
The MPCC found that 15 of those allegations were substantiated and nine were substantiated in part. The other 15 allegations were unsubstantiated.
âCruel tollâ
The initial investigation into Langridgeâs suicide was conducted âwithout any apparent plan or direction, mostly due to the inexperience of the investigators,â Stannard said.
A subsequent investigation of the Fynesâ complaint about the militaryâs decision to give authority over Langridgeâs funeral to someone else âwas conducted without a clear understanding of the nature of the complaint and without asking for necessary legal advice.â
And the 2010 probe into Fynesâ complaints about military negligence was not an âactual investigation,â Stannard said.
Nevertheless, the CFNIS concluded that âthe Canadian Forces could not possibly have been culpably negligent in Cpl. Langridge's death as Mr. Fynes had alleged,â Stannard said.
Sheila Fynes told reporters Tuesday that the entire ordeal took a âcruel emotional, physical and financial tollâ on her family. She said sheâs âvery pleasedâ with the MPCCâs report, but disappointed by the governmentâs response.
She called on Defence Minister Jason Kenney to implement the recommendations made by the MPCC and restore her familyâs confidence in the system.
âMinister, the ball is in your court,â Fynes said.
She later told Power Play that she and her husband are advocating for a âcomplete overhaulâ of the military justice system.
The couple said the military policeâs failures, as demonstrated in the MPCC report, show that non-combat, sudden death investigations should be handled by an arms-length police force and a civilian coroner.
âI think that would go a long way to ensure some kind of transparency and honesty for the families,â Fynes said.
Shaun Fynes said the coupleâs lengthy and exhausting mission to get answers from the military âhas never been about tearing down an institution, but rather trying to make it better for the sake of other families.â
Delaney said the military will be reviewing the MPCCâs findings and recommendations, but stressed that some of the suggestions for improvement have already been implemented over the years.
He said the military has already changed its policies about disclosing soldiersâ suicide notes, and military police investigators have gained a lot of experience since 2008.
In a statement issued earlier Tuesday, Delaney said he recognizes the MPCC identified âa number of problemsâ with the military police investigation, but âit is important to highlight the fact that the most serious of these allegations, those concerning bias and a lack of independence on the part of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) were completely unsubstantiated.â
âUnacceptableâ attempt at secrecy: Stannard
Before the MPCCâs findings were released, the Department of National Defence had its response to the MPCC inquiry designated as "secret" to prevent it from being included in the final report.
The commission had challenged the military's attempt at secrecy, filing an application in the Federal Court for a judicial review to get it overturned. But last Friday, Delaney removed the so-called âProtected Bâ restriction on the militaryâs response, allowing it to be appended to the MPCC report.
Delaney later denied that there was ever an attempt to prevent the inclusion of the militaryâs Notice of Action in the report.
But Stannard said Tuesday the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal still claims to âbe entitled to control what (the MPCC) can and cannot do with the Notice of Action,â as well as impose conditions on the release of such documents or block their publication entirely.
âThis is unacceptable,â Stannard said. âThe Notice of Action is a statutory document the parties and the public are entitled to see in its entirety.â
For that reason, the MPCC will still pursue its application for a judicial review with the Federal Court, he said.