A female civilian member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) filed on Thursday sexual harassment charges against Inspector Tim Shields, the attorney general of Canada and British Columbia's minister of justice.

Atoya Montague, the alleged victim, is assigned to RCMP's Communication Services in BC. She has been on medical leave since August 2011.

Ms Montague claimed that Mr Shields, who was one time the media relations officer of the BC Surrey detachment, made numerous unsolicited sexual advances to her when they went on a trip to the BC Interior office in 2003 to bring supplies to fire victims. Since then he continued to harass her sexually through comments and text messages, she alleged.

This is not the first time that the RCMP has been accused of sexual harassment by its women workers, leading to a class action suit.

Inspector Ed Boettcher, in a statement, said that Ms Montague's allegations are serious and the RCMP is aware of her allegations through a third party, even before she filed a formal complaint.

He said there were repeated efforts to get information directly from the complaining female RCMP employee, but their efforts were not successful.

Besides Mr Shields, Ms Montague claimed that other Mounties had also harassed her as well. Other charges that she brought up that are non-sexual include working evenings and weekends for two years with no overtime pay and being paid $40,000 less than male RCMP employees performing the same task.

Due to the repeated claims of sexual harassment, the new RCMP head promised to address the issue.

Similar issues are hounding Australia's Defence Force.

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