Police to sue Toronto paper over 'racism slur'

In an unprecedented action, the police in Toronto are planning to sue the Toronto Star newspaper for around £800m in libel damages because of a series of articles which suggested that they discriminated against black people.

The police, through their association, say that if the paper does not make a full public apology they will seek punitive damages in a class action.

The articles, which started running last month, suggested that the police treated black people arrested on drugs charges more harshly, carried out racial profiling, and stopped cars more frequently if they were driven by black people. The articles were based on an analysis of six years of arrest figures obtained under freedom of information legislation.

Timothy Danson, the lawyer acting for the Toronto police association, which represents the force's 7,200 officers, spelled out the police's demands in a letter to the paper.

"The articles contain numerous falsehoods, malicious innuendoes and untruthful allegations, all of which amount to a very serious libel," he wrote.

Mr Danson suggested the paper had "injured and disgraced every member of the police service - The uniform and their badge are now synonymous with racism and intolerance."

"There is a very high likelihood of going to trial," Mr Danson added yesterday. "The police are very, very upset."

The Star says the articles are accurate, and that there was no intention of suggesting that every Toronto officer was racist. A spokeswoman said yesterday that it had no intention of apologising.

Toronto's chief of police, Julian Fantino, said: "It is unfortunate that the Toronto Star article was published in a manner that has created such anxiety and controversy in our community."

He said that there had been isolated inappropriate acts, but "we do not have a racist or corrupt police service. Although we are not perfect, in my opinion we have one of the best police services in the world".

The local association of chief police officers also denied that racism was a major problem. Tom Kaye, the president of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, said: "It's certainly not something that we're that concerned about, because we don't believe it exists."

The Star, which sells 465,000 copies a day, is Canada's largest-circulation daily.

The threatened action has already had ramifications for race relations in the city. Nineteen ethnic minority organisations said yesterday that they would boycott a meeting called by the chief of police, because of his support for the action.