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BACKGROUND: Toronto Star: February 5: 2026: A black day for policing in Ontario: "Toronto police corruption Case: Explosive allegations against officers accused of leaking information to criminals'; By Crime Reporter Jennifer Pagliaro and Staff Reporters Abby O'Brien and Calvi Leon; "The seven-month investigation, dubbed Project South, is one of the largest probes of criminal corruption in the Toronto Police Service’s history, involving longtime constables and sergeants as well as younger officers. As reported by Toronto Star Staff Reporters Peter Edwards and Sadeen Mohsen) in a story referred to below: "Part of the allegations announced in Project South on Thursday included the leaking of confidential information by police officers to criminal actors, who then facilitated shootings, extortions and robberies. The investigation stemmed, authorities explained, from an alleged conspiracy to kill a senior corrections officer from the Toronto South Detention Centre at his home in Markham last year."
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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "Kash Heed, a former West Vancouver police chief, said the fact that several officers were charged with computer misuse in Project South raises a question about whether colleagues noticed the alleged misconduct but turned a blind eye. He called for stiff disciplinary sanctions not only for the officers who face criminal charges, but also for their fellow officers who might have ignored concerning behaviour."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Among cases surfaced by the Star in 2015 was Const. Hezekiah Tai, a Durham Region officer who chatted up a waitress at a Richmond Hill bar in 2013 and learned she lived in Ajax, near his patrol zone. She wouldn’t give him her number. The next day, while on duty, he searched the waitress and her family on a police database. He left his post and parked his cruiser outside her family home. He was docked 120 hours pay. Const. Ian Parker, a veteran OPP officer, made inappropriate searches on a police database of 124 people — including former girlfriends, private citizens, fellow OPP officers, their spouses and their children. On seven different shifts, he spent upwards of nine hours of taxpayer-funded time making these improper computer searches. He was docked 20 hours pay. Const. Lisa Peck, another OPP officer, checked internal databases for non-police reasons more than 550 times, accessing everything from photographs to confidential driver profiles and addresses. She was docked 30 hours pay. More recently, Const. Andrew Corkill, a veteran TPS officer, admitted in 2023 that he used official police stationery in a personal dispute with his tenant. Corkill performed an unauthorized search of CPIC to run a background check on a possible tenant.
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STORY: "Stalking exes and a Toronto corruption case: Why allegations of internal database abuse have dogged Ontario police for decades," by Investigative Reporter Frédérik Plante. published by The Toronto Star, on February 7, 2026.(Frédérik Plante is a Toronto-based reporter on the Star’s investigations team. He previously worked for The Globe and Mail, La Presse and CBC/Radio-Canada in Montreal and Vancouver. His 2023 series on Montreal fire safety gaps was a finalist for the Michener Award for public service journalism. He has also investigated illegal detentions, housing, racial profiling and at-risk species protection. Plante holds law degrees from McGill University and the Université de Montréal.)
SUB-HEADING: "The Toronto Police corruption scandal spotlights the sensitive information that officers have at their fingertips and the rules governing access.
GIST: "When police brass revealed the disturbing details of the Project South corruption case against seven active officers Thursday, the allegations resurfaced a problem that has dogged forces in Ontario for years.
York Regional Police alleged that several members of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) used an internal database for criminal purposes, including an attempted murder.
Investigators noticed that addresses queried in the database later became scenes of crimes — “including extortion, commercial robberies and shootings,” according to the Project South allegations.
The new charges again spotlight the personal information that police have at their fingertips and the rules governing their access to it.
In a letter to Ontario’s Inspector General of Policing sent ahead of the Project South news conference Thursday, TPS Chief Myron Demkiw and TPS Board Chair Shelley Carroll asked for an inspection of “access to police databases and information systems, including permissions, controls, and clearances,” among other areas.
“Please consider the extent to which these issues are not unique to any one police service and the extent to which they highlight the need for a sector-wide strategy,” they wrote.
More than a decade ago, a Star investigation found that at least 25 officers had been busted in the previous five years for improper searches of internal databases. These cops checked on former lovers, colleagues and business partners. Some then shared confidential information to outsiders to help with custody battles or court disputes.
Clayton Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association, said accessing police databases, whether CIPC or others, leaves traces. “Meaning the police service can tell every time you’ve accessed any piece of information,” he said. So while police have access to sensitive information, there are “policies and technology in place to make sure there’s proper tracking.”
The Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) is one of the systems officers have access to and that have featured in cases that have landed cops in trouble. It is not known if CPIC is the system that the officers charged by Project South allegedly inappropriately used. York police did not immediately answer questions about the database used. The TPS referred questions to York police.
Law enforcement uses CPIC to access information on individuals and vehicles, among other things. A York Regional Police directive cited in a 2021 court case explains that CIPC information is classified as “Confidential — For Police Only.”
The directive says officers can’t access the database “for any purpose” other than police business. Unauthorized use “will not be tolerated” and can lead to disciplinary action, it says.
“Consequently, it is an offence under the Police Services Act for a member to divulge or show any CPIC information to an unauthorized person or organization,” the directive says.
The 2021 case also describes the existence of other police databases, including MTO-ISS, which is controlled by the Ministry of Transportation and allows officers to check licence plates, names, tickets, and insurance and registration details on their cruiser’s terminal.
In this case, Richard Senior, a Constable with York Regional Police, was found guilty of unauthorized use of a police computer for conducting CPIC queries to pass along licence plate information to third parties.
Among cases surfaced by the Star in 2015 was Const. Hezekiah Tai, a Durham Region officer who chatted up a waitress at a Richmond Hill bar in 2013 and learned she lived in Ajax, near his patrol zone. She wouldn’t give him her number. The next day, while on duty, he searched the waitress and her family on a police database. He left his post and parked his cruiser outside her family home. He was docked 120 hours pay.
Const. Ian Parker, a veteran OPP officer, made inappropriate searches on a police database of 124 people — including former girlfriends, private citizens, fellow OPP officers, their spouses and their children. On seven different shifts, he spent upwards of nine hours of taxpayer-funded time making these improper computer searches. He was docked 20 hours pay.
Const. Lisa Peck, another OPP officer, checked internal databases for non-police reasons more than 550 times, accessing everything from photographs to confidential driver profiles and addresses. She was docked 30 hours pay.
More recently, Const. Andrew Corkill, a veteran TPS officer, admitted in 2023 that he used official police stationery in a personal dispute with his tenant. Corkill performed an unauthorized search of CPIC to run a background check on a possible tenant.
Kash Heed, a former West Vancouver police chief, said the fact that several officers were charged with computer misuse in Project South raises a question about whether colleagues noticed the alleged misconduct but turned a blind eye. He called for stiff disciplinary sanctions not only for the officers who face criminal charges, but also for their fellow officers who might have ignored concerning behaviour.
A previous Star investigation found that police databases such as CPIC contained information on hundreds of thousands of people who had not been charged with any crimes yet was routinely held against them after being accessed through background checks."
The entire story can be read at:
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READ ALSO: Toronto Star story, "Retired Toronto cop charged in corruption probe also tied to case involving alleged debt collector ‘Frank the Tank,’" by Staff Reporters Peter Edwards (my friend, colleague and top-notch author and reporter on organized crime, with whom I partnered on many stories) and Sadeen Mohsen, published on February 6, 2026: (Link Below): A taste: Retired Toronto police officer John Madeley Sr. was charged alongside an alleged underworld debt collector nicknamed “Frank the Tank” in an extortion investigation last month, weeks before he was named in a sweeping corruption probe that also saw the arrests of seven other cops on Thursday. Among those also charged this week in that large-scale York police-led investigation, dubbed Project South, was Madeley’s son, John Madeley Jr., 29, an active officer with Toronto police. Both men are from Barrie. Part of the allegations announced in Project South on Thursday included the leaking of confidential information by police officers to criminal actors, who then facilitated shootings, extortions and robberies. The investigation stemmed, authorities explained, from an alleged conspiracy to kill a senior corrections officer from the Toronto South Detention Centre at his home in Markham last year."
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/retired-toronto-cop-charged-in-corruption-probe-also-tied-to-case-involving-alleged-debt-collector/article_cb95ae01-f35f-486f-b47d-553a4b7f312b.html-----------------------------------------------------
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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