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Defense council for suspended Mountie in child porn trial speaks up

Oct 7, 2015 | 6:08 PM

Defense lawyer Mark Brayford finally spoke up during the third day of suspended RCMP officer Aiden Pratchett’s trial for child pornography charges.

Brayford dug his heels in about using Detective Sergeant Darren Parisien as an expert witness.

Brayford accused Parisien of being antagonistic towards Pratchett during an interrogation on Dec. 22, 2014, before Pratchett was officially charged.

“To say his behaviour was condescending would be kind,” Brayford said of Parisien’s tone.

Parisien admitted on the stand that he takes an adversarial position during interrogations as part of his methods.

He did say their investigation wasn’t a random witch hunt, and they’d been positive Pratchett was their suspect.

Brayford argued Parisien was not impartial to the case as an expert witness is required to be. 

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled in April 2015 that, “Expert evidence should be ruled inadmissible if the expert is not impartial.” In the same ruling, the SSC clarified that it was, “Likely to be quite rare” for an expert witness to be ruled inadmissible.

After adjourning for lunch, the court ruled Parisien could be used as an expert witness since he had admitted his antagonistic stance, and during the interrogation Pratchett had not raised any concerns about Parisien.

As well, the judge noted Brayford had declined to cross-examine Parisien to expose his bias against Pratchett.

Brayford has declined every opportunity to cross-examine a witness since the trial began.

The Crown noted at today’s conclusion that they had factored time for cross-examination into their estimates of how long the trial would take.

It was expected to last the week, though it may conclude sooner.

s.sterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit