City police detective maintains his innocence
Brand insists any computer checks he did were related to investigations
Searching names on police computer systems had nothing to do with any criminal behaviour, Calgary police Det. Gerard Brand told a jury on Wednesday.
“As I stated earlier (on the witness stand), I am not guilty. At no time did I try to conceal anything in this matter,” he explained to a four-woman, eight-man Court of Queen’s Bench jury.
“I didn’t change my identity, I didn’t conceal anything. I believe I was operating under my mandate as a police officer,” Brand said.
But Crown prosecutor Leah Boyd painted a different picture of the senior officer’s conduct in 2010, when he had dealings with a lending company, Manila Capital, and a friend of his, Grant Patterson, whom he provided with information about four individuals.
Boyd told jurors it was clear Brand was providing information for personal gain, either through money paid to him by Manila, which honoured a $2,300 invoice he sent to them, or gratitude for helping a personal friend.
She said Brand was sworn not to use police information for purposes other than those involving his duties with the Calgary Police Service.
“His job required him to use police records, but only for police purposes,” Boyd said.
“He was accessing private and confidential information outside his law-enforcement duties.”
Boyd said evidence showed Brand ran the names of Manila Capital debtors as well as four people Patterson was considering doing business with.
“He was accessing it to sell, or to give it away to Manila Capital or to Grant Patterson,” she said.
Brand told jurors he met with Manila representatives for the purpose of advancing his mortgage business.
“We met at Joey Tomatoes ... we discussed conflict of interest and I gave (the manager) a card for my mortgage business,” he said.
“I had a business engaged in mortgages.”
He maintained any computer checks he did on police databases related to criminal investigations.
“Not one officer, not one, stood up there and said that’s not related to an investigation,” Brand said, pointing to the witness stand.
He said he was involved in numerous investigations over the course of his more than two decades with the Calgary Police Service.
“I happened to work in a very busy area of the city,” Brand said.
He said investigators put on blinders while looking into the allegations against him.
“The truth-finding role was compromised by the belief not only that I was a criminal, but I was the worst type of criminal, an organized crime criminal,” he said, of an early attempt to link his case with an organized crime investigation.
“They had made up their mind this is going on and they’re going to find a way to prove it.”
Justice Glen Poelman will give jurors final instructions on Thursday morning before they begin deliberations.
“I didn’t change my identity, I didn’t conceal anything. I believe I was operating under my mandate as a police officer.