Up to 20 months in jail urged for former cop
Vancouver officer admitted to kissing teenage girl, suspect
SURREY, B.C. — A former Vancouver police detective apologized for kissing a teenage girl and coached her on what to tell an officer investigating his inappropriate behaviour, a sentencing hearing has heard.
James Fisher also admitted to kissing a 21-year-old woman who described him as a father figure and misled investigators probing her involvement in a stabbing, provincial court heard Friday.
“This was not a single isolated incident. This was not a momentary lapse of judgment. This was a pattern of conduct that went on for months,” said Crown lawyer Amanda Starno.
“His moral culpability is extremely high.”
Fisher has pleaded guilty to three charges, including breach of trust and sexual exploitation for kissing the teenager, and breach of trust for kissing the young woman.
Before his arrest and subsequent retirement, Fisher was a 29-year veteran of the force and a member of its counter-exploitation team, which investigates prostitution and criminal exploitation.
The Crown recommended Fisher serve 18 to 20 months of jail time, followed by probation. The defence has not yet had an opportunity to make submissions.
In the summer of 2016, Fisher learned a false rumour was circulating in the department that he’d had sex with the teenage girl, Starno told court, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
Fisher did not know that the girl had complained to Vancouver police months earlier about him kissing her on three occasions when she was 17. The kissing lasted up to 10 minutes, court heard.
The department had initiated an investigation into the kissing, and the teenage girl had agreed to allow officers to record her phone calls.
While investigators thought it questionable that Fisher had asked a friend to interview the girl about the false rumour, they approved the plan in order to record the conversation, the court heard.
Fisher called the girl, then 18, just before his friend was scheduled to interview her. His voice shook and he breathed heavily during the phone call, which was played for the court.
He urged her to tell the officer she either didn’t remember saying they’d had sex, or that she’d said it while she was high, and that the intercourse never happened either way.
She agreed not to say anything that would get him in trouble. But she told him when he kissed her, “it didn’t seem right that a police officer was making out with me.”
“I never, ever meant to hurt you,” Fisher replied. “I thought that it was mutual, and when I did see it wasn’t, I stopped . . . . I’m sorry.”
In a recorded video victim impact statement played in court, the girl said the officer’s actions caused her to relapse with a drug addiction and drop out of school.
“Those memories are still some of the most painful ones of my life,” she said. “It feels like the ultimate breach of trust from someone when I was most vulnerable.”
The woman in the stabbing case told Fisher about her involvement, but he misled the investigating officer by providing an outdated phone number for the woman and describing her as a witness, Starno told the court.
Police ultimately granted her immunity for the crime and she agreed to help with their investigation into Fisher in the fall of 2016. She recorded her conversation with Fisher in a coffee shop.
In the recording, Fisher can be heard assuring her that he had not told anyone about her involvement in the stabbing and asking her not to tell him anything more.
“I trusted you. Why did you kiss me?” the woman asked. “I looked up to you like a father.”
“I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize for that,” Fisher responded.
The woman said in her victim impact statement, also recorded on video, that she used to joke about Fisher walking her down the aisle someday.
But the kissing transformed her from a happy, upbeat person to a negative, depressed drug addict, she said.
“My life went downhill fast.”