With verdict in, officers face hearing

They have been exonerated by a Yukon Supreme Court judge,

They have been exonerated by a Yukon Supreme Court judge, but now the two RCMP officers acquitted of sexual assault Tuesday will have to face their fellow Mounties to answer for their behaviour that fateful night in Watson Lake.

“Because of the criminal charges, the code of conduct hearing is appropriate,” RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers said Tuesday of the disciplinary hearing the two constables will now face.

Graham Belak and Shawn McLaughlin were found not guilty of sexual assault after a five-day trial which wrapped up Friday.

The two were accused by a 28-year-old woman who said they drugged and raped her following a party a year ago in Watson Lake, where the two were posted at the time of the complaint.

But Justice Leigh Gower dismissed the woman’s story.

In his oral judgment given before a packed courtroom early Tuesday afternoon, Gower listed 14 instances where the woman’s testimony made him doubt her story that she did not consent to having sex with the two men at Belak’s home early on March 8, 2009.

He began with the fact she thought she’d been given Rohypnol, a prescription drug known for its use in date rapes and robberies.

The woman didn’t report the alleged assault for more than 30 hours, by which time any evidence of the drug would have left her body, the court learned.

During her testimony, she denied knowing how long the date rape drug would stay in her body, until months after the incident, but the judge said the woman’s professional training made this assertion hard to believe.

He speculated that if she was being untruthful about the drug being used, then it made sense for her to wait until it would have left her system before taking a blood or urine test.

He also rejected her reasons for not stopping at the hospital, which she passed on the walk home from Belak’s apartment.

She said she was still under the influence of the drug at that time and was unable to speak. However, other evidence she gave about speaking to Belak before she left contradicted her story, the judge concluded.

Gower highlighted a number of examples of the woman changing her story slightly, first saying she “thought” she had been raped, and later telling health professionals and police she was “sure” the attack had occurred.

Possibly the most damning moment of his analysis came when the judge addressed the woman’s description of the moments leading up to the threesome.

She said she was standing in front of Belak when McLaughlin came behind her and thrust his pelvis into her behind.

She first testified she didn’t say anything but considered leaving at that point, then later she said she couldn’t say anything because she had been drugged.

Still later in her testimony, she said she was showing Belak her necklace and describing where she got it at that moment and didn’t say anything about McLaughlin’s thrust because she didn’t feel threatened by it.

It was here in his breakdown of the evidence that Gower called her version of events “internally inconsistent, illogical and unreliable.”

Gower heaped more doubt on her story as he went through her actions in the hours and days following the incident.

He wondered how she could give such a detailed description of Belak’s bedroom, which she said she only saw from the doorway, and then only for a moment.

He said she had “remarkable recall” for someone who claims to have been drugged and was a few minutes later still unable to speak in order to go to the hospital for help, the judge said.

The judge also pointed out the vast difference between the woman’s description of her husband’s reaction when she arrived home at around 6:00 that morning.

The husband took the stand and said he was very angry when his wife got home, and that he “unloaded” on her when she walked through the door.

She however, said her husband was “upset” but not angry.

This directly contradicted the description she gave to police, the judge said, which was “Oh, he was pissed.”

The woman’s relationship with her husband and his temper were reccurring themes in the trial. According to Belak’s and McLaughlin’s testimonies, she complained about her husband, saying he treated he poorly and was an “asshole.”

“The best way to get back at a guy is to cheat on him,” Belak recalled saying to her, “because it attacks his masculinity.”

The woman said she didn’t remember any such conversation.

Gower also pointed to an incident which happened five months after the charges were laid.

The woman and her husband were in the Roadhouse bar following the preliminary hearing of the case, when a sheriff from the courthouse approached them and said something critical about her testimony.

This led to an altercation at the Whitehorse bar and the police were called.

Then, some hours later, she called police again, this time telling an officer she was scared of what her husband might do because of his temper.

Although she didn’t say she was specifically worried about her own safety, she did take the RCMP’s suggestion that she spend the night away from her husband at a local women’s shelter.

While on the stand, she contradicted an agreed statement of fact regarding events on that Aug. 5 evening, submitted to the court by defence and Crown counsel. Gower said this further hurt her credibility.

Although the woman began to tell the court more about the incident, both the Crown and defence attorneys objected, and that portion of her testimony was cut short. The sheriff’s name was never revealed, nor were any details of what the sherrif said to her or her husband’s reaction.

The territorial Department of Justice refused to comment on whether the sheriff will be disciplined for approaching a witness out of court about her testimony.

After dispensing with the woman’s testimony, Gower moved to the evidence given by the two officers when they each took the stand in their own defence.

Noting that a witness’s demeanour on the stand is not a foolproof way to assess his credibility, Gower said both men were very believable.

They described “an obviously embarrassing and regrettable scenario” in straightforward and candid detail, the judge said.

In delivering his judgment, Gower used the men’s testimonies to give a detailed play-by-play of the sexual encounter the three people had on the night in question.

He went on to say he found it “improbable” for two police officers in a small town would risk their families and jobs by drugging and assaulting a nurse whom they had met at a mutual friend’s house.

“They probably wish nothing more than that the incident never happened,” Gower said before pronouncing the men “not guilty.”

Now Belak and McLaughlin will face a three-member panel of RCMP officers in a code-of-conduct hearing.

“Formal discipline is warranted when an officer has broken RCMP code of conduct and when informal disciplinary action would not be appropriate,”

Rogers said of why the men must still face professional reprimand after being found not guilty.

The men could face punishments ranging from suspension without pay, to dismissal from the force.

No date has been set for the hearing, Rogers said. The spokesman did not know if the officers will remain suspended from active duty until their case is heard.