Accused police advised to avoid independent work, court told

Two Calgary police officers testified Thursday that they advised two of the service members accused in a police corruption trial not to do outside surveillance work.

Det. Darren Smith, one of the witnesses called by the Crown on Thursday, said he was good friends with Anthony Braile and would often socialize with him.

After Braile was suspended with pay from the service over an unrelated incident, Smith told court he became aware of work his friend was doing while suspended, including helping out a retired investigator who owns a private-investigation firm.

“I didn’t think he should be doing that,” Smith testified.

Braile, Bryan Morton and Bradford McNish face charges of bribery and unlawfully using a police computer system.

Braile faces an additional charge of criminal harassment and McNish an extra allegation of breach of trust by a public officer, while Morton faces both additional accusations. The charges stem from incidents between Aug. 11, 2012, and 2015.

The three are accused of being paid by former Calgary police officer Steve Walton to investigate Akele Taylor on behalf of her former boyfriend, Ken Carter, during their child-custody battle.

Const. David Grouchey, who invoked a section of the Canada Evidence Act that protects witnesses from incriminating themselves during testimony, testified that Morton was a friend between 2012 and 2014. He said he repeatedly shared concerns with Morton about off-duty surveillance work Morton told him he was doing.

When asked by the Crown whether he had done any work for Walton, Grouchey said he was part of a constant rotation of people paid to watch a property on the Bow River following the June 2013 flood. Earlier in the day, court heard that former Athabasca Oil CEO Sveinung Svarte had hired Walton to secure his two houses along the river.

“What I was told is we were basically watching the house,” Grouchey testified. He told court he was paid $1,000 a day by Morton for 10 shifts at the property.

Grouchey said he also agreed to do two days of work observing a house in Cougar Ridge in February 2014, and was again paid by Morton $1,000 a day for the work. He then returned to Svarte’s property in July 2014 to work a Stampede party.

The Crown’s witnesses Thursday also included Fred Taylor, the adoptive father of Akele Taylor, whom he raised with his wife, Verna Taylor. He said when the parents visited their daughter at her condo in Calgary, she didn’t want them to talk very much because she didn’t know if her home was bugged. She was also afraid to go anywhere, feeling that she was going to be followed.

Walton and his wife, Heather, and Carter are scheduled to go to trial in September.