CALGARY - Mounties say a communications breakdown between an officer and dispatcher meant a child was not rescued from a convicted sex offender's vehicle.
John Francis Dionne was stopped Feb. 24 near Airdire with a 10-year-old girl he allegedly kidnapped a short time earlier from Deerfoot Mall, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.
He was handed a speeding ticket and drove off and the girl was dropped off unharmed at a nearby McDonald's.
On Wednesday, RCMP released review findings into the botched traffic stop, vowing to "improve the way we do things."
The probe showed there was information available detailng Dionne's criminal past and concerns he might re-offend -- which prompted Mounties to issue a public notification last fall when he was released into the village of Linden.
But the Mountie did not get that information during the traffic stop.
Neither the officer, a 25-year veteran working highway patrol since January, nor dispatcher will face any discipline.
The case will, however, prompt improved procedures that will require dispatchers to ensure such details are received by an officer.
"In this case, the officer did his best given the information he possessed at the time," RCMP Supt. Gary Brine, said. It "identified a miscommunication issue and the RCMP is committed to making sure it doesn't happen again."
After pulling the minivan over, the officer did the required checks and determined it was registered to Dionne.
While the police database showed he had a record of violence and was also flagged as 'special interest to police,' key information which likely would have led the officer to investigate further did not get to him.
RCMP said the dispatcher voiced the cautions via radio and sent the information to the laptop in his cruiser.
The officer said he heard the caution for violence but not the SIP caution and the laptop message was not flagged high priority, which breaches the dispatcher's required procedures.
"Police officers are inundated on a daily basis with bulletins, wanted posters and other information," RCMP Insp. James Stiles said.
"This is why this information is placed onto police computers, so when we encounter these people the necessary flags are in place -- in this case ... all the information wasn't conveyed to the officer."
Had the officer received the information his likely actions would have been very different, he said.
"Things could have turned out entirely differently," Stiles said.
"He would have been more inquisitive, no doubt, and with a young female in the vehicle would have triggered him to investigate."
nadia.moharib@sunmedia.ca
