Delaney Mazza was part of a protest in November over what was seen as an unusually high rate of Kelowna RCMP ruling sexual assault cases as being unfounded.
(KATHY MICHAELS / iNFOnews.ca)
September 18, 2020 - 7:30 AM
After gaining national attention for the way it dealt with sexual assault complaints, the Kelowna RCMP is well on its way to clearing its name.
It was about a year ago when Kelowna RCMP gained national attention after a Statistics Canada report showed that 40 per cent of 170 complaints filed in 2018 and into 2019 were deemed to be “unfounded” versus a provincial average of 15 per cent.
Unfounded means the investigating officer did not find evidence that a crime occurred.
That led to police reviews of the files that determined 66 needed further study. Of those, 25 were correctly filed as unfounded, 29 had been incorrectly filed under that title and 12 needed further investigation, the review determined.
READ MORE: Here’s how mistakes were made on 62 per cent of Kelowna RCMP’s sexual assault cases
As of today, Sept. 16, only three cases are still under investigation. There were actually 13 cases reviewed.
‘Out of the six files from 2018, two are still being actively investigated and four have now been concluded as Insufficient Evidence to Proceed,” Cpl. Jocelyn Noseworthy, the detachment’s communications officer, said in an email to iNFOnews.ca.
“Out of the seven files from 2019: one file is still being actively investigated, one has been concluded as Insufficient Evidence to Proceed, and five are concluded as the victim declined to proceed.”
Depending on the outcome of those investigations, that brings the Kelowna detachment close to the 15 per cent provincial average of sexual assault cases being unfounded.
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