Watch above: A Saskatoon police officer is charged with attempting to obstruct justice for misplacing a victim statement in a case. Meaghan Craig tells us his lawyer entered a not guilty plea and trial dates have been set.
SASKATOON- A veteran member of the Saskatoon Police Service is now heading to trial in the spring. Const. Steven Nelson, 33, had his lawyer enter a plea, on his behalf, of not guilty of attempting to obstruct justice at provincial court on Thursday.
“It’s a serious charge, it’s an indictable offence, it’s a serious charge for anyone who’s facing this charge,” said defense lawyer Brad Mitchell who represents Nelson.
The nine-year member of the service, who is in the patrol division, has been suspended with pay since being charged in October. Nelson is accused of deliberately misplacing a victim’s statement between the time period of August 2012 and October 2013.
Police would not say how it was discovered that the item was missing and that all statements taken by members of the force are kept electronically and in hard copy. If the statement was in writing, once submitted, it will go into permanent data banks.
In this case, the statement stems from a domestic violence compliant the constable was working on. He is believed not to have known the parties involved and a charge was laid in that case.
“Given this situation it’s having an impact on his employment. Any individual with criminal charges hanging over their head, they like to get them resolved sooner rather than later so you try to get a trial date as soon as you can, as soon as schedules allow and that’s what we did in this case,” added Mitchell outside the courthouse.
A trial date for the constable has now been set for two days, April 28 and 29.
“Someone who’s a member of law enforcement the perception could be that it adds something to the equation, I think at the end of the day the same rules apply to everyone, that’s our system that we work with and it has to be respected.”
According to Mitchell, the only different in this case is an out of town judge and prosecutor will be assigned to the file so there’s no conception of bias.
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