Alleged harassment victim testifies she knew little of accused officers
The former Calgary woman at the centre of a police corruption case had little awareness that three cops accused of harassing her were involved, she admitted Monday.
In fact, Akele Taylor told lawyers for two of the three officers most of the information she had about their involvement came from the third accused.
Taylor told defence lawyers Jim Lutz and Paul Brunnen she couldn’t independently say for certain that either Bryan Morton or Brad McNish was part of a relentless two-year period of surveillance on her.
Taylor said much of the information she supplied to police came from co-accused Anthony (Tony) Braile, who approached her in August 2014 to say she’d been under surveillance for two years.
Under cross-examination, Taylor conceded she told a detective that Morton may have been present when her close friend Miranda Lundrigan was offered a $10,000 “bribe” even though she wasn’t there herself.
“You’re talking to the detective as if you were there?” Lutz suggested.
“Yes,” Taylor said.
“You were describing Mr. Morton being present at something you weren’t even at,” the lawyer said.
“I didn’t say I was there,” she replied.
Braile, Morton and McNish face charges of bribery and unlawfully using a police computer system.
Braile, who has since been fired from the Calgary Police Service over an unrelated incident, faces an additional charge of criminal harassment and McNish an extra allegation of breach of trust by a public officer. Morton also faces each of those charges.
The charges stem from incidents between Aug. 11, 2012, and 2015.
It’s the Crown’s allegation the three men were hired by private investigator Steve Walton, himself an ex-police officer, on behalf of Taylor’s former boyfriend Ken Carter, who at the time was embroiled in a child custody battle with her.
Taylor told Lutz she became paranoid because she believed she was being followed constantly.
“Did stress affect the way you saw things?” the lawyer asked. “I don’t think so,” she said. Taylor said one incident in which she was “boxed in” on Bow Trail S.W. by Walton, Walton’s wife Heather and a police vehicle may have involved Morton, but conceded she wasn’t certain.
“I believe it was Bryan, but I can’t say 100 per cent,” she said.
She told Brunnen his client was even less familiar to her, even though she identified him in court.
“He wasn’t one of the faces that I saw around all the time,” Taylor said.
The Waltons and Carter are set to stand trial in September.
You were describing Mr. Morton being present at something you weren’t even at.