Officer went too far to get ‘confession,’ judge rules

For those not often in contact with police, an understanding of what officers can and cannot do legally might not be common knowledge.

The issue was among those considered by a Regina provincial court judge in a recent decision tossing out a young man’s confession — and subsequently the case itself — when it was determined a police officer significantly overstepped her bounds during a suspect interview.

Identified in the December decision only by initials, E.B.R. was 19 and had no previous criminal involvement when he was questioned in early 2016 about a 2015 allegation of invitation to sexual touching. The complainant was a four-year-old girl.

According to the decision penned by Judge Kevin Lang, an interview by a Southey RCMP officer with the girl’s mother did not result in information that would support a charge against the 19-year-old. The officer’s next step was to ask the man to come in voluntarily to provide his version of events.

“(The officer) candidly testified that had E.B.R. refused to come in to be interviewed, nothing further could have occurred with respect to the investigation and presumably therefore, no charges would or could have been laid given there simply would have been no evidence to support any type of charge,” Lang wrote.

“In my view this was significant because (the officer) was mindful, from the outset, that but for a full confession being extracted from the accused, no charges could have been laid.”

While court heard the officer told the man he could leave whenever he wished, Lang found her actions were enough to make the man think otherwise. She positioned herself between the man and the door, told him she expected him to be there when she returned from leaving the room and became, in the judge’s words, “much more aggressive” when he continued to deny wrongdoing.

The turning point came when the officer issued what the judge deemed a threat, asking the man, “Should I start knocking on the door of every kid you have come in contact with?” She then left the room, advising him to “think hard about what you want to do here.”

The man testified he felt “trapped” in the room and ultimately told the officer what he believed she wanted to hear, providing what amounted to a confession.

The judge determined a “significant power imbalance existed” given the man was young and inexperienced with law enforcement.