A former Surrey RCMP officer, who filed a lawsuit after nearly having a nervous breakdown from working in a child sex offences unit in Surrey, has won a legal hurdle.
In his affidavit, Wardrope says that he continues to have severe emotional and physical symptoms, which are debilitating and crippling, associated with PTSD. Wardrope, who became a Mountie in January 2007 and is a resident of Maple Ridge, says in the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court that in 2009 he was recruited to the child abuse and sexual offence unit.
A supervisor told him that overtime was not common in the unit unless a big file came in, perhaps several times a year, and that the amount of child porn he would have to view would be minimal as the work mostly involved interviewing children, he claims.