A retired Quebec police officer has pleaded guilty to charges laid against him, in the only criminal case to go forward following explosive allegations of police misconduct in Val-d’Or, Que., in 2015.
Jean-Luc Vollant was one of two officers charged following an investigation by the province’s Crown prosecutors, prompted by a Radio-Canada investigation into alleged misconduct against Indigenous women.
Among the 37 complaints of forcible confinement, discrimination, assault and sexual abuse that were filed at the time, two met the standard for prosecution, but neither stemmed from a Val-d’Or complaint.
The two cases that did move forward involved the police force in Schefferville, Que., on the Labrador border.
Vollant pleaded guilty to sexual assault on Oct. 5. at the Sept-Îles courthouse, after being charged in 2016 for rape, indecent assault and sexual assault, during his time working with the local police force in Schefferville in the 1980s.
He will be back in court on Dec. 4 for sentencing on one count of sexual assault.
The two other charges of rape and indecent assault are automatically dropped, due to a provision in the Criminal Code under which a person cannot be convicted twice for the same crime.
The other officer charged with sexual assault and assault with a weapon, Alain Juneau, worked with the Sûreté du Québec in Schefferville, in the 1990s.
Juneau committed suicide in early 2017, two months after the crown laid charges against him.