Media coverage of the charges of sabotage laid against two sailors from Ottawa led to their "stigmatization," a court-martial in Victoria heard today.
The charges of sabotage against Petty Officer (Second Class) Janet Sinclair and Petty Officer (Second Class) Silvya Reid were later dropped.
The two have pleaded guilty to wilfully damaging military property. The incident relates to the damaging of a database icon at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.
Their defence lawyer Lt-Cmdr. Pascal Levesque entered various news articles, including those from the Ottawa Citizen, the Times Colonist and the Globe and Mail into the court record.
The court martial hearing is continuing this afternoon.
The two were originally charged with sabotage, a rarity for the Canadian Forces legal system. That charge was dropped in October.
Sinclair and her spouse, Reid, both worked at the National Defence Headquarters command centre at the time of theJuly 2007 incident and both had a top secret clearance and access to classified databases. One was a NORAD system while the other was a separate system called Titan.
The two were charged after a year-long military police investigation and are now serving at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, B.C. in the Maritime Forces Pacific headquarters.
The sailors said little during the court martial and their guilty plea will limit the number of witnesses to be called in the proceedings.
In entering their guilty plea Wednesday, their lawyers asked that the wording on the charge indicate the two had willfully damaged a database icon.
According to information provided to the court, Sinclair had voluntarily created a computer program that allowed officers better access to data by improving how they could search for the information.
But on July 16, 2007, a database icon on the command centres computer system was damaged and an assessment report later determined that the program created by Sinclair had been rendered inaccessible. That, in turn, limited the search for what was termed historical data on missile launches and other space-related information.
No motive was provided Wednesday during the court martial.
But prosecutor Maj. Jason Samson told the court that Reid wanted to see if anyone at the command centre could fix the damaged system. He explained that the computer program in question had been created on Sinclairs initiative and Reid didnt want to leave it with the unit.
Reid wanted to teach them a lesson to do their job, Maj. Samson read in a statement to the court.
The court martial judge, Col. Mario Dutil, heard details about an electronic chat between the two sailors that Samson said had revealed an intent to crash the database.
Sinclair, in a message from home, explained to Reid at headquarters how to disable the system. Reid noted that she was going to backup the information on to a CD and then corrupt.
At that point, Sinclair responded: Dont forget to crash the database.
Reid wrote back: I will now.
The electronic chat messages were later discovered by investigators.
In a turnover note to her co-workers Reid informed them that she had a problem with the database and couldnt fix it.
It took four hours of work and cost $536 to fix the system. Military officers have not disclosed details about the specific nature of the database or its security value to the Canadian Forces.
Both s Sinclair and Reid had top secret clearance and according to Samson held extremely sensitive positions with access to highly classified information. There were no details about the type of classified work that the two performed.
Sinclair is a sonar operator, while Reid is a naval combat information systems operator.
Part of the court martial was spent hearing the pay and pension implications if the sailors were released from the military or reduced to a lower rank.
The two were originally charged in August 2008, each with one count of sabotage, one count of conspiracy, one count of mischief in relation to data, and one count of willful property damage.
In October the military decided not to move forward on the charges of sabotage and conspiracy after a post-charge screening process by the Canadian Forces director of military prosecutions was done. The charge of negligently performing a military duty was added at that time.
The prosecution agreed Wednesday to drop the charges of mischief in relation to data and negligently performing a military duty.