THE JAIL SUBJECTED HIM TO “HORRIFIC TORTURE” AND “VENGEFUL COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT” OF NEARLY 200 INMATES. THE JUDGE STAYED THE CHARGES OF ROBBERY OF A JEWELRY STORE WITH A LOADED GUN. DO YOU THINK THAT WAS THE CORRECT DECISION?
By Brendan KennedyInvestigative Reporter
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
