Lawsuit pulls back curtain on RCMP’s witness-protection program — alleges force failed to prepare family for new lives

There is no question that Paul Derry has helped get criminals off the streets.

He delivered big time when he agreed to testify against four people accused of taking part in the execution of a man in Dartmouth, N.S., in 2000. They were all convicted.

But Derry, 55, says he, his wife, children and grandchildren have paid a dear price for his risky work as a paid police informant.

They are now plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the RCMP and federal government, accusing them of failing to provide adequate support as the family endured mental health breakdowns and “loss of freedom” stemming from their years in witness protection.

“They failed to protect anybody’s mental health or prepare any of them for what could happen or would happen,” the gravelly voiced Derry said by phone from a location the Star has agreed not to disclose.

“Did we know what 20 years of hiding was going to be like? No clue. Did they do anything to mitigate the damage to us along the way? Nothing.”

The lawsuit is the latest case to draw attention to the secret world of witness protection and to raise questions about the RCMP’s ability to help informants — often former career criminals themselves — lead healthy, productive lives after their snitching is done.

Admission to the program is completely voluntary and available to anyone whose safety is at risk because they helped police. Participation can last a lifetime and typically involves moving to another city or province, assuming a new identity or both.

According to the RCMP website, $16 million was spent administering the witness-protection program in 2019-20. Twelve people were admitted into the program that year; 21 were given “alternate methods of protection” (which can happen if someone is inadmissible to the main program or refuses relocation); and 19 declined any form of protection.

Though efforts have been made to improve the program’s transparency and accountability, critics such as Derry maintain it is poorly resourced and failing to deliver on its promises.

In court filings, the RCMP and attorney general of Canada deny the allegations and say the plaintiffs knew what they were getting themselves into.

RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Caroline Duval said in an email the program has undergone “significant enhancements” over the past couple of years, including improved standards and greater focus on the needs of protectees.

---

Derry’s lawsuit was filed last August in federal court but has gone unreported until now.

His background is far from squeaky clean. According to authorities, he was involved in gang and drug activity and served several years in prison for fraud.

Derry and the RCMP disagree when he began feeding information to police. He claims it started when he was a teenager. Police say it was in his early 20s. For a time, RCMP labelled him as “treacherous,” saying they could not be certain of his reliability.

That said, authorities acknowledge the information he supplied often paid off.

In court filings, police say that beginning in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, Derry provided them information about: associates of the Hells Angels, the people responsible for the robbery of an elderly couple in Nova Scotia; a planned robbery in New Brunswick; the whereabouts of two people wanted on Canada-wide warrants; and the whereabouts of two people who had escaped from prison.

What landed him in witness protection in the early 2000s, though, was his decision to help police with a murder investigation.

In October 2000, Sean Simmons was gunned down in the lobby of an apartment building in Dartmouth, N.S., after it was rumoured he had had an affair with the girlfriend of a Hells Angels member.

According to court records, Derry acknowledged playing a supporting role in the murder, including providing the weapon used, being the getaway driver and helping dispose of the evidence.

But he worked out a deal with authorities: He would testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Four others — a Hells Angels member and three associates — were later convicted.

In 2001, Derry, his then-girlfriend and their children entered witness protection and were relocated outside of Nova Scotia.

Eight years later, Derry was told he was being ejected from the program for breaching the terms of the agreement. It was around this time that Derry was promoting a new book about his time as an informant.

But because some of the men convicted of murdering Simmons were still pursuing appeals, Derry continued to face risks to his life, according to court records.

So in 2014, Derry, his current wife and their children entered into a modified witness protection agreement and were forced to relocate again.

After the last of the appeals was heard in 2019, three of the four convicts remained in custody and one had been released.

It was around this time that Derry and his wife spiralled into a deep depression, according to their lawsuit.

“The stress of being in and involved with the witness protection program is what caused the mental breakdown of both Paul and Kristyna Derry,” the statement of claim says, noting that undercover cops and soldiers returning from conflict zones get routine mental health assessments.

The plaintiffs allege in their lawsuit that RCMP failed to assess the Derrys’ readiness for the program, nor did they advise them how mentally and emotionally taxing being in long-term witness protection would be.

“The RCMP failed to warn the plaintiffs that if they joined, they would never be able to put down roots in any community and would never have a place they could call home,” the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs argue that criminals on parole seem to be entitled to more benefits than people in witness protection.

At times, there were long delays just getting new birth certificates, social insurance numbers and passports issued, they allege. Without a past and proper credentials, it was a challenge for family members to obtain employment or schooling, according to the lawsuit.

“Further, as a result of not having a credit history under her Witness Protection Program name, Kristyna has had trouble getting bank accounts.”

A chunk of the lawsuit is devoted to the effects on children. It alleges RCMP did not ensure the children had access to a meaningful education.

At one point, Derry had to have a “private discussion” with a school principal just to get his daughter enrolled because she was still waiting for her identity documents. Fear around having dual identities also led to her social isolation, the lawsuit contends. As an adult now, his daughter still suffers from anxiety and rarely leaves home.

“If the government and RCMP are going to offer witness protection, especially for children, they have an obligation to plan and think about how the program will affect participants, and plan so that the program offers the least disruption possible.”

The suit says Derry’s two grandchildren are part Indigenous, but are unable to obtain Indian status and will “lose out” on receiving benefits that come with that status.

“Further, Christine (Derry’s daughter) cannot discuss their fathers with her children out of fear that the children will reveal her identity.”

It alleges RCMP repeatedly breached plaintiffs’ confidentiality. For example, when Derry’s son turned 18 and asked to revert to an identity he’d previously used, RCMP issued provincial ID that linked a new name with an old name.

---

In a statement of defence filed in January, the federal government and the RCMP denied the allegations, noting that Derry and his family voluntarily entered witness protection, were fully aware of the terms of those agreements and received legal advice beforehand.

The government paid out all of Derry’s debts before he went into witness protection in 2001, the defendants say. They also note that Derry and his then-partner were provided psychological and addiction counselling upon entering the program.

When administrators learned of the family’s more recent struggles with mental health, the program provided funding for counselling.

Get the latest in your inbox.

Never miss the latest news from the Star, including up-to-date coronavirus coverage, with our email newsletters.

The defendants say the program has evolved over the years and now offers psychosocial assessments prior to admission to the program, as well as career assessments and counselling.

But they argue any suffering by the plaintiffs was brought on by their own conduct, including their failure to “acquire any educational or occupational skills for any legitimate and marketable occupation” and failure to “take steps to establish themselves in a self-supporting manner and obtain any gainful employment.”

They say program administrators “acted reasonably and diligently” to secure ID records for family members and that any delays were outside of their control.

When it comes to children’s education, the program will assist in getting records and transcripts but the rest is the responsibility of parents.

“The program provides advice on how to approach schools, including navigating nondisclosure of sensitive information,” the defendants say.

When informed of the grandchildren’s Indigenous identity in 2019, program administrators initiated the application process to obtain Indian status for them but say it was up to the plaintiffs to submit the paperwork.

Regarding the allegation of breach of confidentiality, the defendants acknowledged that when Derry’s son asked to revert to an identity he’d used previously, program co-ordinators “inadvertently” issued him a birth certificate that identified his parents using surnames they’d used in the past rather than their current ones, but said the error was quickly fixed.

If the family has faced threats to security, it is because of their own actions, the defendants said, pointing out Derry’s television and radio interviews and public disclosures of his past as an informant.

Over several years, Derry has built a career around his life as an informant that involves books, a documentary, a website and speaking engagements with police agencies.

His 2015 book, “Inside a Police Informant’s Mind,” begins with this evocative introduction:

“The strong wind mixed with ocean spray coming off the Atlantic onto the beach at Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia made me shiver. Or maybe it was the clothes covered with brain matter and blood that we were trying to throw into the open sea. Everything seemed surreal. Less than an hour before, we had been having a beer and chilling out, and now we were destroying evidence after helping to take a man’s life,” it reads.

When a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge in 2018 decided against holding a new trial for one of the four men convicted of killing Sean Simmons, one of the reasons cited was Derry. Once a key Crown witness, the judge said, Derry had in intervening years engaged in an “extraordinary public campaign” of self-promotion related to his involvement with organized crime.

If Derry were called to be a witness again in a new trial, his participation would “create the spectacle of the potential monetization of the criminal trial process by a participant,” the judge said.

---

Derry is not the first person to bring scrutiny upon this country’s witness protection program.

In 2018, Noel Harder, an ex-member of the Fallen Saints Motorcycle Club, filed a similar lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit said Harder had supplied investigators with information about organized crime activity in the Saskatoon area and became a key witness in multiple trials.

Harder and his family entered witness protection on the understanding they would be given new identities, get help setting up a new business, and that their children would be enrolled in new schools, the lawsuit contends.

“They were told it was an opportunity to start fresh in a new life and that they would maintain the same standard of living.”

Instead, the lawsuit alleges, their time in witness protection was “psychological torture,” leaving them “cut off from any support systems” as if they were in prison.

A trial is still pending and nothing has been tested in court. The government has denied the suit’s allegations.

In a blunt statement, Harder’s lawyer, Tony Merchant, told the Star “systemic dishonesty” exists within the program.

“Almost by definition, people going into witness protection have been involved in criminal wrongdoing and sometimes seriously involved in gang activities or heinous crimes,” he said.

“One suspects this leads to the RCMP holding people in witness protection in low regard and being individually prepared to take advantage of those people, lie to them, trick them, make them believe something will happen that the RCMP knows will not happen.”

As far back as 2008, a parliamentary committee tasked with assessing the witness protection program noted it was hamstrung from doing a thorough evaluation because of lack of information.

A number of questions remain unanswered, the committee said at the time, including: “What happens to children who undergo radical changes in their lives when one of their parents co-operates with the authorities?”

It recommended that administration of witness protection be taken out of the hands of police and put in the hands of an independent office within the Justice Department, consisting of police officers, Crown attorneys, psychologists and criminologists. It also called for the establishment of a dispute resolution process and opening up the program to independent researchers.

“The RCMP failed to implement the 2008 recommendations,” Derry’s lawsuit states.

An advisory committee consisting of academics and retired police formed in 2013 to help reform the program does note in its most recent annual report the program has undergone “significant structural and operational changes,” including the hiring of additional staff, engagement of a full-time researcher and development of a research strategy.

Even so, Derry says none of that can reverse the toll the program has had on him and his family.

“Do you know how many different names I’ve had?” he asks rhetorically. “Do I know who I am anymore? I haven’t got a clue.”