OPP officer who saw jailhouse assault video comes forward, pushes for change

An Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer is coming forward to share how he stumbled across a video of a troubling jailhouse assault, setting into motion a chain of events that would eventually result in a conviction but would also prove devastating to his mental health.

An Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer is coming forward to share how he stumbled across a video of a troubling jailhouse assault, setting into motion a chain of events that would eventually result in a conviction but would also prove devastating to his mental health.

Const. Charles Ostrom told CTV News he was accidentally exposed to the video of Const. Bailey Nicholls assaulting a woman in cells at OPP's Orillia detachment, after finding a report attached to the case wasn't accurate.

"It was as far from what I had read in the report as imaginable. I thought, 'I'm seeing a crime. I'm witnessing a crime.' Albeit four months later, but I'm witnessing a crime," Ostrom said in an interview.

Ostrom had already been off work in 2013 when he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with two suicide attempts in three weeks. He returned to work 14 months later on reduced duties, allowing him to stay away from anything traumatic.

If the report attached to the video had indicated the assault it contained, Ostrom said he would have avoided it. Instead, it sparked his PTSD and pushed him to report it, passing information to a retired officer that would make its way to the OPP Commissioner and the province's police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), he said.

The video would prove crucial to the conviction of Nicholls for assault causing bodily harm. Nicholls was given a suspended sentence on Thursday by Justice John Olver.