A just completed review of "unfounded" sexual assault cases has resulted in 15 Sarnia police files being reclassified.
Police Chief Phil Nelson began his review in early February of 78 cases between 2010 and 2014, following a nationwide investigation by the Globe and Mail.
The report indicated 22% of sexual assault allegations reported to city police were categorized as unfounded, compared to the national rate of 19%.
"For example, a person comes and reports a sexual assault that happened in another police jurisdiction, you're not involved in the investigation of that so it shouldn't be listed as unfounded," says Nelson. "It would be up to the other jurisdiction to list it as unfounded when they go through it, for us its just a police information and you're forwarding the information to another police service for that purpose."
Nelson says following his review, he's satisfied that everything possible was done with the cases that remain listed as unfounded.
Nelson says he is now personally reviewing unfounded cases from 2015 and 2016.
In the meantime, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) will be working together to review the current classification codes.
