Two B.C. police officers abused their authority when they left a drunk teen tethered inside a Victoria jail cell for hours, the adjudicator in a public hearing ruled Tuesday.

Retired provincial court judge Alan Filmer said at a hearing of the B.C. Police Complaint Commissioner that constables Ryan O'Neill and Brian Asmussen will receive written reprimands for their handling of 15-year-old Willow Kinloch.

Kinloch was arrested in 2005 after police found her wandering drunk along a downtown Victoria street at midnight.

Police have claimed that Kinloch was verbally abusive and combative when they picked her up.

At first police tried to take her home. When no one responded at the residence, police said she was taken to jail for her own safety. They alleged she then became uncooperative.

Surveillance tape shows officers pushing Kinloch against the wall of a jail cell, forcing her to the ground and handcuffing her. The officers then tie her feet and leave her tethered to the cell door for four hours.

In his ruling on the incident, Filmer said that from now on, leg restraints should only be used on children as a last resort.

Filmer also called for B.C.'s children's representative to look into the case, and said the government needs to ensure that a social worker is available to children in similar situations -- even if they're drunk.

Kinloch sued the Victoria Police Department for violating her charter rights, and was awarded $60,000 by a B.C. Supreme Court jury in 2008.

The department has been the target of several abuse-of-power complaints in recent years.

In June, Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham announced a sweeping review of the department's use of force and cell-block operations.

The probe was prompted by several high-profile incidents this winter, including a January incident in the cell-block area that led to allegations of assault against Sergeant George Chong, brother of Oak Bay–Gordon Head MLA, Ida Chong.

In April, the Calgary Police Service agreed to conduct an internal investigation of the department after a video posted on YouTube showed two officers apparently kicking a man being restrained outside of a nightclub.