A Calgary police officer who pleaded guilty in court to sexually assaulting a woman at a Calgary strip club has been formally dismissed from the service.
A disciplinary hearing took place Tuesday for Const. Gurluv Singh, who was charged with sexual assault in December 2022 following an investigation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT).
According to the tribunal, Singh was at Blondies Cabaret, an adult entertainment bar, in October 2021 with a group of off-duty officers when he groped a staff member without her consent.
According to the presiding officer of the hearing, retired Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Adèle Kent, her decision to dismiss Singh comes after he served out his conditional discharge and one-year probation from the courts.
“Anything short of dismissal of this officer would undermine public confidence in the police,” she said.
In her determination, Kent said, as an officer, Singh would have dealt with the consequences of actions against vulnerable people daily and “should be particularly attuned to the need of workers in a place like this to be and to be respected. That’s not what happened here.”
Kent said the assault happened at the woman’s place of employment, where she should feel safe.
She referenced a video that she said showed two to three male officers around the woman at the time that would have made the victim uncomfortable whether she knew they were police or not.
In her decision, she added while strip clubs are not illegal, they are often “places where vulnerable people, mostly women, are exploited” and questioned why police officers, even off duty, would frequent them.
Kent took into account Singh’s previous good record, letters of reference, positive evaluations and his guilty plea in court, but in her decision weighed the factors into a fair and just sanction, the impact on public trust and future deterrence.
“None (of these) override the need to maintain public confidence in the service,” she said.
Singh declined to comment to CTV News through his lawyer, Andrea Urquhart.
“We know that serious allegations of this nature involving the conduct of serving members, even while off-duty, impacts the trust and confidence the public has in us,” the Calgary Police Service said in a statement.
“We take these matters very seriously, as is evidenced by this disciplinary hearing, and remain committed to thorough and transparent accountability.”
