No ‘why’ yet on police suspensions
Three officers in question were named in Lavin trial last week
The three members of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service recently suspended from duty figured into testimony last week at the trial of another officer accused of impersonating a staff sergeant.
The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union has confirmed the suspensions of Sgt. Jerome Kelly, his wife, Const. Roberta Kelly, and Const. Greg Livingstone. Jerome Kelly is the president of the union representing police officers while Livingstone is the vice-president.
Neither the NSGEU nor police have said why the officers have been suspended. Wade Lavin — who stands trial on charges including impersonating a staff sergeant, forgery, uttering a forged document and conveying a false message — was the union local’s chief steward and testimony in his trial wrapped up Thursday.
When he took the witness stand in his own defence, Lavin admitted setting up the staffkenny@outlook.com account using the name of Staff Sgt. Ken O’Neill in July 2015, used to send information to the media about concerns over use of police-issued vehicles and credit cards by members of the management team. Lavin said he didn’t intend for recipients to believe that the emails were being sent from O’Neill.
Lavin said the issue of police vehicles was raised during a meeting between union and management officials and also with Chief Peter McIsaac. He said members of the executive felt that they had pursued the avenues available to them, that information should be released to the media and he was asked by Jerome Kelly to draft the release.
Lavin testified about a meeting held at east division where he was filling in as acting sergeant on the evening of July 22, 2015 involving himself, Greg Livingstone, who was working an overtime shift, and Jerome Kelly and Roberta Kelly, who were off-duty at the time.
“The nature of the conversation was that we had exhausted every avenue put to us to try to resolve an issue that we weren’t making headway with and it was everyone’s belief at that time that some information should be released to the media,” Lavin said, adding other union matters were also discussed at the meeting.
Lavin said the initial contact with the media involved the use of vehicles.
“That night in particular, Jerome brought a list of all the fleet vehicles assigned to the CBRPS, I don’t know where it came from,” Lavin said, adding the list appeared to be somewhat outdated.
He scanned the list using the office Xerox machine to attach to the email he would send to media, Lavin testified. He added he was also given a thumb drive by Livingstone containing a document with emails discussing the concerns over vehicle use.
Lavin said he was subsequently approached by Jerome Kelly a couple of days later to send another email to the media about the use of credit cards but he refused, saying he didn’t know anything about it.
“His instruction to me was that, ‘well, I’ll sit down with Bert (Roberta) tonight and I’ll send you something,’” he said.
Lavin testified he received in his personal account on July 27, 2015 an email regarding the alleged misuse of credit cards from Roberta, who he believed was sending it on Jerome’s behalf.
“After having read it, I wasn’t convinced that that would be enough information to really follow up on so I just sat on it, Jerome had called me the next day, the 28th, when I was working day shift … and asked me had I sent it out and I said no,” Lavin said. “I asked him a number of times, ‘is this accurate,’ because I wanted to be sure before sending something like this because it’s a pretty serious allegation and he had told me something as to where he had heard it from or who had told him and it made sense to me … to me that would be a credible source.”
Lavin’s next email to the media was sent on July 29.
Shannon Kerr, spokesperson for the Cape Breton Regional Police, said Monday she could confirm that three members have been suspended under the Nova Scotia Police Act, pending an investigation by the RCMP. She said the names of the suspended officers could not be released as the investigation is ongoing and no charges have been laid.
Kerr confirmed that, under the Police Act, if an officer is suspended, the first 60 days is with pay, and if a suspension stretches beyond that period whether they would continue to be paid would be at the discretion of the police chief.