A retired senior Halifax police officer testified Tuesday that supervisors had the responsibility to order a search of the scene of an alleged rape in 2018, but that search never happened.
Don Stienburg, the retired staff sergeant who was in charge of special investigations in 2018, took the witness stand during a Nova Scotia Police Review Board hearing about the complaint of Carrie Low, who has accused police of mishandling her sexual assault case.
“(A search) was not done,” said Stienburg, who didn’t offer a reason why.
Low has complained that Const. Bojan Novakovic, the first officer to interview her, and the Halifax police force as a whole, mishandled the investigation of her alleged abduction and sexual assault by at least two men on the night of May 18, 2018. She has appealed the decision to dock Novakovic eight hours pay for his handling of her case, and has sought broader recommendations to improve the police department’s handling of sexual assaults.
Stienburg said Novakovic completed a report on the case on May 19, 2018, after he interviewed Low at the hospital. He said sergeants had access to that report and to a second one in which Novakovic noted precisely where the alleged rape scene was.
However, the sexual assault investigation team never searched the scene, according to 322 pages of police records filed before the board.
Brian Bailey, Novakovic’s lawyer, asked Stienburg, “No supervisor determined it was important, or appropriate or necessary to secure that location?”
Stienburg replied, “It was obvious that decision was made they weren’t going to go out (there).”
Low told the hearing last week that police should have searched the scene. Had police done so, she said, they could have retrieved her underwear and a shoe that she said she had left behind that Friday night. She also testified that a specialized sexual assault investigator should have interviewed her over the weekend, rather than on the following Tuesday.
A copy of one of Novakovic’s police reports was entered into evidence. It said that on May 20, 2018, Low called him and said she had obtained the location of the alleged rape from the taxi company that brought her home. The report said Low reported that she was picked up from a trailer after the alleged sexual assault at “409 Partridge River Road, in East Preston.”
Police records entered into evidence show that there was no search warrant issued for that address. Lawyers for Novakovic and for Low have confirmed that a search was never carried out at that location.
The records show that Const. Jerell Smith, who was appointed lead investigator on May 22, 2018, and a second officer, visited the scene in East Preston in August 2018 and left a card when they found nobody was home. Smith has since left the police force.
Stienburg said a supervising sergeant with the Halifax police — whose name he didn’t know — would have had the job of reading and providing “quality assurance” on the case file created by Novakovic.
The retired officer agreed with Bailey that it wasn’t Novakovic’s role to call in more resources or order a search, adding the order would have had to come from multiple senior officers.
The hearing continues on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 18, 2023.
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