Gregory Boyd

A police officer was charged with perjury, obstructing justice, and breach of trust arising from testimony he gave in Provincial Offences Court during a traffic prosecution.

The officer had testified that he personally obtained and wrote a cautioned statement from a motorist, when in fact another officer had written the statement.

The court accepted that the testimony was objectively false but found the Crown failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer intentionally misled the court or knew the statement was false at the time he testified.

Evidence showed multiple administrative errors by other officers and the prosecutor, and the accused plausibly believed he had taken the statement after discovering the original document in his file while testifying months later.

The court concluded the false testimony resulted from a mistaken assumption rather than deliberate deception.

The accused was charged with multiple sexual offences involving a young person in a relationship of dependency, as well as assault-related offences.

The trial centred on credibility, with the court applying the framework from R. v. W.(D.) to assess conflicting testimony between the complainant and defence witnesses.

The court accepted the complainant’s detailed and consistent evidence, finding it corroborated in part by contemporaneous writings and surrounding circumstances.

The accused’s denial and supporting testimony from family members were rejected as unreliable and biased.

The court convicted the accused on four sexual offence counts and one count of simple assault but acquitted on a separate assault count and on assault with a weapon.