Craig Ruthowsky takes the stand in his corruption trial

Craig Ruthowsky was a hard-working police officer, he may not have followed all the rules but his intentions were always honourable. That’s what a Toronto jury heard today as the Hamilton officer took the stand today to testify in his own defence.

Craig Ruthowsky wanted to be a police officer from the time he was in grade six, he told the court and once he made the police force, he quickly learned what type of police work he liked.

“My stuff, I like cocaine and guns,” Ruthowsky told court. “Giving tickets to good citizens heading to work in the morning, that was for other officers. I did not want to go in that direction.”

Ruthowsky says he didn’t get formal training on informants, but he started developing them on his own.

“I decided to stop these people, befriend them and turn them into street-level informants… and I was successful.”

He says no other officers had as many informants as he and he worked harder than the others. Ruthowsky told court the gangs and weapons unit was his dream job.

“I’ll be honest it was very fun to attend a residence, smash a door and raid a house.”

Ruthowsky took the court through a binder of commendations he had from the police service for his work. He talked about the arrests he made due to the cooperation of his informants and he talked about how he kept working those informants even after he was suspended from the force. He told the court he never took money from those informants though, he had a typical handler, informant relationship with them. He says any extra money that appeared in his family finances was due to his side business selling swimming pools, in which he did not keep good financial records.

Ruthowsky will continue on the stand tomorrow.