PUBLISHER'S NOTE: You don't believe this happened? Just watch the video. (I hope it's available in your jurisdiction. HL); Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The ruling follows a court’s stunning decision last October to throw out first-degree murder charges against three men who were similarly abused in the same incident, and a decision in December to significantly reduce the sentence of a man convicted of human trafficking and sexual assault. The decisions also cite the jail’s attempted coverup and lack of accountability as key factors. (The Crown is appealing the judge’s ruling in the murder case.)
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "As was the case in the court hearings that led to the collapse of the murder charges, McLeod found that most Maplehurst officials who took the stand in Mohamed’s case gave untruthful or evasive testimony and were generally not credible witnesses. This factored into her decision, she said, describing it as part of an ongoing coverup attempt. She also criticized what she called an overall lack of accountability at Maplehurst. Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, whose ministry oversees provincial jails, has repeatedly delined (sic) interview requests from the Star.Toronto Star file photo While the jail’s superintendent and five other staff members were firedfollowing an internal investigation, many of the officers responsible for Mohamed’s mistreatment still work at the jail, she wrote. “Not one person has been charged criminally despite the findings of excessive force and collusion and lying.” The ministry did not respond to a question about whether they had referred any evidence to police."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "The jail’s surveillance cameras did not capture anything that occurred inside the cells. A screengrab of surveillance footage shows inmate Harris Mohamed, hands ziptied and arms bent in a “twist lock.”Ontario Court of Justice The guards were supposed to have used a hand-held video camera to record any interaction with inmates in their cells. They instead propped up the camera in the corner of the range, nowhere near the cells, contrary to policy. Nearly all of the footage from that camera was lost by the jail in what officials claimed was a technical glitch. One judge found it was most likely destroyed as part of the coverup; McLeod wrote she had “deep suspicions” about what happened to the video, but not enough evidence to conclude it was destroyed."
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STORY: "Maplehurst guards told him to sing 'jingle bells' during the jailhouse beating. How the inmate abuse scandal continues to upend the courts", by Toronto Star Investigative Reporter Brendan Kennedy, published on June 10, 2026. (Brendan Kennedy is a reporter on the Star’s investigative team, focusing primarily on social justice issues. In 2020 he was part of a team that won a National Newspaper Award for a series of stories showing a higher rate of COVID-19 infection and death in for-profit long-term-care homes. He has also received award nominations for his reporting on Ontario’s Greenbelt scandal, immigration detention, temp work and working conditions for Amazon delivery drivers. He joined the Star as an intern in 2009 and has previously worked as a general assignment reporter, Blue Jays beat writer and social justice news reporter.)
SUB-HEADING: "More than two years after the misconduct, solicitor General Michael Kerzner still refuses to answer questions about the incident and the fallout;
GIST: "In the latest consequence of the Maplehurst prisoner abuse scandal, a Brampton judge has thrown out charges against a man who pleaded guilty to armed robbery, describing the jail’s treatment of him as “horrific torture.”
Justice Katherine McLeod found no justification for the pepper spraying, beating and “gratuitous cruelty” the man suffered when jail guards carried out a “vengeful” collective punishment of nearly 200 inmates in December 2023 after an inmate punched a guard.
She relied in part on jailhouse security footage showing the opening moments of the guards’ attack on Harris Mohamed, a first-time offender arrested for robbing a jewelry store with a loaded gun.
The then 26-year-old was in Maplehurst awaiting sentencing when jail officialsordered the internal riot squad — known as the Institutional Crisis Intervention Team, or ICIT — to carry out a violent, mass strip search of all the inmates on his unit.
It is “imperative,” the judge wrote in her 74-page decision, that the justice system denounce the jail’s actions as unacceptable and “so far beyond the bounds of common decency that the system must react with the strongest of condemnation.”
The ruling follows a court’s stunning decision last October to throw out first-degree murder charges against three men who were similarly abused in the same incident, and a decision in December to significantly reduce the sentence of a man convicted of human trafficking and sexual assault. The decisions also cite the jail’s attempted coverup and lack of accountability as key factors. (The Crown is appealing the judge’s ruling in the murder case.)
The widening impact in Ontario courts
Dozens of criminal prosecutions across the province have been compromised by the widening scandal, as Crown attorneys and judges account for rights violations and state misconduct by shortening sentences or staying charges. At least 15 current or former inmates are still pursuing their case in court.
The province won’t say how many cases have been affected.
The province is also now facing more than 50 civil lawsuits related to the incident, including a class-action, collectively seeking tens of millions of dollars in compensation. Mohamed is among those suing the government.
Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, whose ministry oversees provincial jails, did not respond to questions for this story and declined an interview request, as he has all previous requests on the subject.
McLeod found the operation was ordered purely for vengeance after an inmate sucker-punched a guard two days earlier.
“Any pretense of it being anything else simply is false,” she wrote.
The inmate who threw the punch had already been transferred to another jail when the riot squad descended on his former unit, announcing their presence with a stun grenade.
Judge finds guards taunted him during beating
Inmates were forcefully pulled from their cells in their underwear, had their hands zip tied and arms contorted into painful positions, before they were marched to a hallway where they were forced to sit cross-legged with their heads bowed while guards trained pepper ball guns at the backs of their heads. Their cells were then ransacked by other guards and emptied of all contents, including toilet paper, as well as personal items, such as family photos.
Inmates were then left in their underwear for two days while jail staff turned on fans that blew cold air onto the unit.
Mohamed testified — as several other inmates have also alleged in interviews with the Star and the ministry’s internal investigators — that he was beaten and pepper sprayed during the incident. The judge believed him over denials of jail officials.
McLeod found there was never any credible justification for Mohamed’s mistreatment, which she found included being twice pepper sprayed, repeatedly punched and having his head smashed into the floor by multiple guards while pinned to the ground in his cell. The judge also said she believed Mohamed’s testimony that guards told him to sing “Jingle Bells” while they were beating him. Other inmates have made similar allegations.
“We were able to see so much of the gratuitous cruelty, it is not a stretch to accept that he was taunted in the way he described,” she wrote in her decision.
Surveillance camera footage, obtained by the Star from the court, shows guards spraying pepper spray into Mohamed’s cell and then quickly closing the cell door. After first dragging Mohamed’s cellmate out by his feet, four guards then enter and remain in the cell for more than two minutes. This is when Mohamed said the beating occurred.
The jail’s surveillance cameras did not capture anything that occurred inside the cells.
A screengrab of surveillance footage shows inmate Harris Mohamed, hands ziptied and arms bent in a “twist lock.”Ontario Court of Justice
The guards were supposed to have used a hand-held video camera to record any interaction with inmates in their cells. They instead propped up the camera in the corner of the range, nowhere near the cells, contrary to policy.
Nearly all of the footage from that camera was lost by the jail in what officials claimed was a technical glitch. One judge found it was most likely destroyed as part of the coverup; McLeod wrote she had “deep suspicions” about what happened to the video, but not enough evidence to conclude it was destroyed.
Guards attempted a coverup, judge finds
As was the case in the court hearings that led to the collapse of the murder charges, McLeod found that most Maplehurst officials who took the stand in Mohamed’s case gave untruthful or evasive testimony and were generally not credible witnesses.
This factored into her decision, she said, describing it as part of an ongoing coverup attempt. She also criticized what she called an overall lack of accountability at Maplehurst.
Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, whose ministry oversees provincial jails, has repeatedly delined interview requests from the Star.Toronto Star file photo
While the jail’s superintendent and five other staff members were firedfollowing an internal investigation, many of the officers responsible for Mohamed’s mistreatment still work at the jail, she wrote.
“Not one person has been charged criminally despite the findings of excessive force and collusion and lying.”
The ministry did not respond to a question about whether they had referred any evidence to police.
While a stay of proceedings is the most dramatic step a court can take to address state misconduct, the practical impact of quashing Mohamed’s conviction is that he will not have a criminal record.
He already served the equivalent of a four-and-a-half-year sentence, and the Crown had asked the court to sentence him to time served, conceding he was at least owed a six-month reduction on what would have been a mandatory five-year sentence.
McLeod deemed that wholly insufficient to denounce Maplehurst staff’s conduct.
The “overwhelming disappointment,” she wrote, is believing that in Canada, “we would be better than this.
“The actions of the (Maplehurst) officers prove sadly that we are not.""
GIST: "In the latest consequence of the Maplehurst prisoner abuse scandal, a Brampton judge has thrown out charges against a man who pleaded guilty to armed robbery, describing the jail’s treatment of him as “horrific torture.”
Justice Katherine McLeod found no justification for the pepper spraying, beating and “gratuitous cruelty” the man suffered when jail guards carried out a “vengeful” collective punishment of nearly 200 inmates in December 2023 after an inmate punched a guard.
She relied in part on jailhouse security footage showing the opening moments of the guards’ attack on Harris Mohamed, a first-time offender arrested for robbing a jewelry store with a loaded gun.
The then 26-year-old was in Maplehurst awaiting sentencing when jail officialsordered the internal riot squad — known as the Institutional Crisis Intervention Team, or ICIT — to carry out a violent, mass strip search of all the inmates on his unit.
It is “imperative,” the judge wrote in her 74-page decision, that the justice system denounce the jail’s actions as unacceptable and “so far beyond the bounds of common decency that the system must react with the strongest of condemnation.”
The ruling follows a court’s stunning decision last October to throw out first-degree murder charges against three men who were similarly abused in the same incident, and a decision in December to significantly reduce the sentence of a man convicted of human trafficking and sexual assault. The decisions also cite the jail’s attempted coverup and lack of accountability as key factors. (The Crown is appealing the judge’s ruling in the murder case.)
The widening impact in Ontario courts
Dozens of criminal prosecutions across the province have been compromised by the widening scandal, as Crown attorneys and judges account for rights violations and state misconduct by shortening sentences or staying charges. At least 15 current or former inmates are still pursuing their case in court.
The province won’t say how many cases have been affected.
The province is also now facing more than 50 civil lawsuits related to the incident, including a class-action, collectively seeking tens of millions of dollars in compensation. Mohamed is among those suing the government.
Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, whose ministry oversees provincial jails, did not respond to questions for this story and declined an interview request, as he has all previous requests on the subject.
McLeod found the operation was ordered purely for vengeance after an inmate sucker-punched a guard two days earlier.
“Any pretense of it being anything else simply is false,” she wrote.
The inmate who threw the punch had already been transferred to another jail when the riot squad descended on his former unit, announcing their presence with a stun grenade.
Judge finds guards taunted him during beating
Inmates were forcefully pulled from their cells in their underwear, had their hands zip tied and arms contorted into painful positions, before they were marched to a hallway where they were forced to sit cross-legged with their heads bowed while guards trained pepper ball guns at the backs of their heads. Their cells were then ransacked by other guards and emptied of all contents, including toilet paper, as well as personal items, such as family photos.
Inmates were then left in their underwear for two days while jail staff turned on fans that blew cold air onto the unit.
Mohamed testified — as several other inmates have also alleged in interviews with the Star and the ministry’s internal investigators — that he was beaten and pepper sprayed during the incident. The judge believed him over denials of jail officials.
McLeod found there was never any credible justification for Mohamed’s mistreatment, which she found included being twice pepper sprayed, repeatedly punched and having his head smashed into the floor by multiple guards while pinned to the ground in his cell. The judge also said she believed Mohamed’s testimony that guards told him to sing “Jingle Bells” while they were beating him. Other inmates have made similar allegations.
“We were able to see so much of the gratuitous cruelty, it is not a stretch to accept that he was taunted in the way he described,” she wrote in her decision.
Surveillance camera footage, obtained by the Star from the court, shows guards spraying pepper spray into Mohamed’s cell and then quickly closing the cell door. After first dragging Mohamed’s cellmate out by his feet, four guards then enter and remain in the cell for more than two minutes. This is when Mohamed said the beating occurred.
The jail’s surveillance cameras did not capture anything that occurred inside the cells.
A screengrab of surveillance footage shows inmate Harris Mohamed, hands ziptied and arms bent in a “twist lock.”Ontario Court of Justice
The guards were supposed to have used a hand-held video camera to record any interaction with inmates in their cells. They instead propped up the camera in the corner of the range, nowhere near the cells, contrary to policy.
Nearly all of the footage from that camera was lost by the jail in what officials claimed was a technical glitch. One judge found it was most likely destroyed as part of the coverup; McLeod wrote she had “deep suspicions” about what happened to the video, but not enough evidence to conclude it was destroyed.
Guards attempted a coverup, judge finds
As was the case in the court hearings that led to the collapse of the murder charges, McLeod found that most Maplehurst officials who took the stand in Mohamed’s case gave untruthful or evasive testimony and were generally not credible witnesses.
This factored into her decision, she said, describing it as part of an ongoing coverup attempt. She also criticized what she called an overall lack of accountability at Maplehurst.
Solicitor General Michael Kerzner, whose ministry oversees provincial jails, has repeatedly delined interview requests from the Star.Toronto Star file photo
While the jail’s superintendent and five other staff members were firedfollowing an internal investigation, many of the officers responsible for Mohamed’s mistreatment still work at the jail, she wrote.
“Not one person has been charged criminally despite the findings of excessive force and collusion and lying.”
The ministry did not respond to a question about whether they had referred any evidence to police.
While a stay of proceedings is the most dramatic step a court can take to address state misconduct, the practical impact of quashing Mohamed’s conviction is that he will not have a criminal record.
He already served the equivalent of a four-and-a-half-year sentence, and the Crown had asked the court to sentence him to time served, conceding he was at least owed a six-month reduction on what would have been a mandatory five-year sentence.
McLeod deemed that wholly insufficient to denounce Maplehurst staff’s conduct.
The “overwhelming disappointment,” she wrote, is believing that in Canada, “we would be better than this.
“The actions of the (Maplehurst) officers prove sadly that we are not.""
The entire story can be read at:
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. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. 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; 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;
