Gaps in video raise new questions about case of disabled man alleging mistreatment

John Nicol and Dave Seglins cbc.ca Toronto police, at the direction of an Ontario Superior Court judge, have released an internal video which for more than two years the force denied existed, in a case involving the arrest and detention of a paraplegic man who claims he was assaulted by officers and urinated on while in custody. Udhbirprasaud ​(Joe) Bhikram was arrested on Jan. 28, 2009, and charged with uttering death threats — charges which he successfully fought and had thrown out. But for years he has been fighting through formal complaints and freedom of information requests to obtain a copy of a police video, claiming he was assaulted during his arrest, neglected at the station when he fell from his wheelchair onto the floor of a holding cell, and then berated and urinated on by one officer. Police staff swore affidavits in 2012 insisting the video recording had been erased. "They told me video was destroyed by another video overplaying this," Bhikram told CBC News from his apartment in northwest Toronto. "What happened now? They got a video? "Someone's lying." Bhikram has more recently filed a small claims lawsuit against one Toronto officer, and last week Deputy Judge J.D. Burnside adjourned a settlement conference demanding the Toronto police provide Bhikram "with the video in question." Toronto police searched again and immediately produced copies of a video, but there are numerous breaks in the recording, where time stamps show significant gaps in images of events in the cells. to read more: cbc.ca