Two Whitehorse RCMP officers were charged with assault causing bodily harm last month.

Arthur Joe, a man who this year was sent to a federal penitentiary for a drinking and driving offence, alleged that RCMP Constables Brian White and Kevin Mayes assaulted him on May 10, 2003.

The Crown stayed the charges against the officers early last month.

None of the factors surrounding the alleged assault are known as evidence was examined in a closed courtroom.

A court clerk asked reporters to leave before court proceedings began.

RCMP Sgt. Guy Rook said there was no need for an internal investigation into the alleged assaults because the matter has already been looked at by the courts.

Rook pointed out that RCMP officers do not often find themselves in trouble with the law.

However, this year, two other Yukon RCMP officers found themselves in difficulty with the law.

Last January, Dawson RCMP Const. Peter Mitchell had to serve a three-month probation period and make a $500-donation to a women's shelter after he assaulted a woman he ran into in the street. The incident occurred after he had been drinking at Diamond Tooth Gerties gambling casino.

Mitchell was not on duty at the time of the offence.

And last February, RCMP Const. Jeff Monkman was found guilty of careless driving, after a traffic accident he was involved in killed a female prisoner he was transporting.

Monkman was charged a $1,000-fine for the offence.

Joe was the same man who was involved in the Madeline Henry case.

Henry was a woman who stopped breathing in Yukon police cells in Whitehorse on May 31, 2000, suffered brain damage after a lack of oxygen to the brain and died in Whitehorse General Hospital on June 14, 2000.

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy determined that what actually killed Henry was bronchial pneumonia, something that happens to people that go into a coma.

What was never determined was why Henry stopped breathing that night.

Joe said during a coroner's inquest that it was because Henry suffered a seizure.

He had argued the RCMP, who'd picked up Henry 15 times before for public intoxication, should have known she was prone to such seizures that were connected to her long-term, heavy binge drinking when they arrested her at that time.

She was more likely to be ill and have seizures if she'd been drinking for a while, he said, noting the couple had been drinking for several days at that point.

During the inquest, the jury heard that through the computerized booking system for cell inmates, information such as medical problems can be made available to officers who arrest that person in the future.

At one point earlier in 2000, a female guard had made a handwritten note that Henry was prone to seizures.

That information didn't make it to the constable who picked her up May 30.

'That information should have been on (the prisoner report),' Joe said. 'They should have known that.'

In one of two recommendations aimed specifically at the RCMP, the coroner's jury suggested that the police make sure that sort of information carries forward on the computer system-generated prisoner reports.

In March, Joe was sentenced to spend three years in a federal penitentiary after refusing to provide a breath sample.

Joe received the lengthy sentence because of his extensive drinking and driving history. Over the years, he has racked up nine impaired driving charges.