Editor's note: The following letter is in response to the letter to the editor titled “Newspapers unfairly criticize Sudbury Police Service
I have numerous problems with Mr. Curry’s letter to the editor, but I will focus on a few.
For your readers to understand first the context, his letter is in response to recent local media articles reporting on a detailed 20-month-long investigation by Globe and Mail reporter Robyn Doolittle, which resulted in a lengthy and very important article titled “Unfounded: Why Police Dismiss 1 in 5 Sexual Assault Claims as Baseless” which was published Feb. 3 in the Globe and Mail.
Mr. Curry states that these articles started with the “media assertion that roughly one third of reported sexual assaults in Sudbury have been summarily dismissed without proper investigation.”
The Globe and Mail article is not mere “media assertion.” That article is based on almost two years of detailed investigation by its author and her investigative team. It is published in one of the country’s most prominent and reputable newspapers. I finally had the opportunity to read the article and it is an excellent piece of investigative journalism. It is a fair, balanced and most importantly, fact- and research-heavy article. The statistics cited come directly from police services across the country.
The Globe and Mail article reveals that over the five-year time period studied, police in Greater Sudbury closed complaints of sexual assault as being “unfounded” at a rate of 33 per cent, which is a higher rate than many other cities. The Globe and Mail article details how and why these “unfounded” rates vary so widely across the country. It’s not mere “media assertion” that 33 per cent of Sudbury’s reported sexual assaults have been closed as being unfounded. This is a fact, supported by evidence from the Greater Sudbury Police Service itself.
The letter writer does not appear to accept this fact, as his letter continues with “Even if these statistics were valid…”
He states that the local articles “insinuate that there should be no presumption of innocence in sexual assault cases and that Sudbury Police should charge everyone that is accused of sexual assault.” Nowhere does the content of these articles insinuate or support such ludicrous conclusions.
I doubt that Mr. Curry read the Globe and Mail article.
If he did not read the Globe and Mail article, he is missing key facts and context to the local media’s reporting on the original story.
I’m glad that Mr. Curry cares enough to weigh in publicly on the issue, but I think he really missed the point of the local media’s coverage, which I found to be on the whole fair, objective and wholly justified coverage that reported on key findings from the Globe and Mail article.
I would encourage all your readers to go to the source and read the original Globe and Mail article as a starting point to this timely and extremely important discussion, so that resulting discussions such as this are as on point and as constructive as possible.
Amy Best
Sudbury