Closing submissions in a criminal case brought against a Brantford Police Officer charged with obstructing justice turned into an intense debate between the officer’s lawyer and an out-of-area judge, brought in to decide the matter.
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Const. Kassandra Peekhaus Harrison, 30, stands accused of suggesting to another junior officer how he could end an inquiry into why he didn’t promptly give an accused man his right to counsel in September 2022.
“If you want to lie, you can say you arrived at the hospital and asked if he wanted a lawyer and he said ‘yes, but if I’m not being held, I’ll call on my own time.’” Harrison texted on her personal phone.
It was in response to a text from Const. Branden Smith, also from his personal phone, after a supervisor inquired why an accused had not been promptly offered his rights. Smith asked Harrison “how to make it go away.”
In her messages, Harrison said “I don’t think you can unless you lie, lol” but also suggested Smith “just own it.”
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Harrison firmly denied she was counseling Smith to lie about the oversight.
The two officers responded to a report of a car crash at a T-intersection at Phelps Road and Mt. Pleasant Road on Sept. 21, 2022.
Harrison read an initial warning to the driver, who they suspected of being intoxicated and, after learning an ambulance wasn’t available to get the injured suspect to hospital, Smith drove him to the Brantford General.
The two officers divided responsibilities and continued their shifts.
As her defense lawyer, Joanne Mulcahy, tried to make closing submissions in the two-day trial this week, Justice Deborah Calderwood repeatedly interrupted her with questions.
Mulcahy said Harrison was simply asking Smith if a certain scenario was accurate while the judge asked if that didn’t “stretch the balance of believability.”
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“She doesn’t say ‘Say this’ or ‘You must say this,’” Mulcahy said. “It’s a question. It’s clear sarcasm. She’s mocking him, making fun of him.”
“This is a communication about work and includes evidence in a criminal investigation,” responded the judge.
“There may be a ‘lol’ (laughing out loud) in there but it is a serious concern about a potential violation of an accused’s charter rights,” Calderwood said.
By including details about breath readings and forms that needed filling out, the two officers couldn’t suggest it was non-serious banter and the whole matter was inappropriate on personal phones.
Calderwood said the words “If you want to lie…” couldn’t be ignored.
“Officers sending ‘if you want to lie’ to another officer should have a chilling effect. It’s behavior that’s very dangerous, even in a joke way.”
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Crown attorney Matthew Moser argued there was a willful attempt to obstruct justice, saying the defense was asking the judge to “backfill” alternative meanings to the series of texts between the two officers.
“Read the conversation, end to end,” Moser said.
“There’s an inescapable conclusion that one officer is sending the other a suggestion about how they could lie to escape an inquiry that has the tendency to pervert the course of justice.”
Harrison was charged by Brantford Police and suspended from duty a month after the incident two years ago.
The case returns to court on Dec. 11.
@EXPSGamble
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