WATSON LAKE – The shock and disappointment were palpable in the Watson Lake courthouse today, as a dozen Yukon women listened to a panel of RCMP officers end the internal hearing into the conduct of two disgraced Watson Lake Mounties before it had even begun.

Graham Belak and Shawn McLaughlin sat in the front row behind their RCMP-appointed counsel and listened as the disciplinary hearing against them was dismissed for lack of evidence.

The 20-something nurse who, two years ago, accused the two men of raping her was not present; without her, there would be no hearing.

But the complainant wasn't the only piece of the puzzle missing.

The RCMP didn't have an Appropriate Officer Representative (AOR), the equivalent of the Crown prosecutor, they put forward no evidence and the only motion they made was to adjourn the disciplinary hearing into the alleged sexual assault, which has been in the works for the past 16 months.

"This is almost laughable,” John Benkendorf, counsel for McLaughlin, said after an agent for the non-existent AOR told the three-officer panel that two senior AORs had reviewed the case and refused to peruse it.

Both sides have known since mid-April that the woman refused to come and testify, but it wasn't until Sunday night that a court summons was even written up, and at 8:40 this morning, had not been delivered to the woman.

It likely wouldn't have made much difference.

The nurse said weeks ago she wouldn't come even if it meant breaking the law by ignoring an official summons, the panel heard today. To the women gathered at the courthouse today, it looked as if the RCMP were sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

"Today just reminds me of the residential schools,” said Dorothy Smith, a Ross River elder and member of the RCMP elders' advisory council.

"I think it brings back a lot of memories where a Catholic priest is accused of sexual assault against the children and they just ship them off to another place and it starts all over again.”

Belak and McLaughlin have in fact been relocated, Yukon's Chief Supt. Peter Clark confirmed today, saying they are still technically members of the territory's division but are "on assignment” in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Clark denied the summons was made at the last minute, and said it was the final step in a long negotiation to try to get the woman to come to Watson Lake this week.

When asked why the disciplinary hearing could not proceed using transcripts from the original trial, Clark said it would not be fair because there would be no opportunity to cross-examine the woman.

After a week-long trial in March 2010, the two officers were acquitted by Justice Leigh Gower of the Yukon Supreme Court. In his final ruling, Gower said he found the woman's testimony unbelievable, and preferred the version of events given by Belak and McLaughlin.

At the trial, the two men described every detail of a drunken threesome they had with the woman after a party all three attended, and said she was a willing participant.

The woman said she believed she was drugged after going back to Belak's apartment for another glass of wine after having no fewer than a dozen drinks at the party, and was paralyzed when the men had sex with her. There was no forensic evidence to support her theory, however, and she did not report the alleged crime until after any drug would have left her system.

Both officers were off-duty at the time of the alleged assault.

The RCMP should have held the hearing based on the fact the officers had sex with a woman who was too drunk to give legal consent, women's advocate Lois Moorcroft said today, and the fact their behaviour has severely damaged the RCMP's reputation in Watson Lake and beyond.

"It's conduct unbecoming of an officer,” said Julianna Scramstad, director of the Victoria Faulkner Women's Centre. Police officers are held to a higher standard because of their role in the community, she said, and should be held to that same standard by the force.

"When I see this, I think, ‘How many more women aren't going to come forward and make a complaint because where is it going to go?'” said Cathy Johnson, a Watson Lake resident and women's advocate.

"It's going to let their side down and not have a prosecution.

"I was horrified that they didn't amend (the disciplinary hearing's purpose) to cover something other than a sexual assault. … I think their conduct was absolutely unbecoming.

"They are supposed to be morally above reproach and they weren't; they absolutely were not.”

Today's aborted hearing marks the last time Belak and McLaughlin will have to formally answer the charge of sexual assault. It is not on their criminal nor their professional records.