Former Halifax police officer’s appeal dismissed
The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal has upheld a former Halifax Regional Police officer’s criminal convictions for looking in windows at a Bedford motel while working night shifts in 2017.
George Edward Farmer, 46, was found guilty in January 2019 on charges of voyeurism, trespassing at night and breach of trust after a trial in Halifax provincial court.
Judge Chris Manning rejected Farmer’s testimony that he was acting in the public good by being on the lookout for young females involved in prostitution, runaways or drug transactions.
The judge stayed the charge of trespassing at night before accepting a joint recommendation from lawyers for a sixmonth conditional sentence, followed by a year’s probation.
Farmer, who is no longer on the police force, appealed his convictions. He claimed the trial judge erred in his analysis of good-character evidence, misapplied the burden of proof, failed to apply the proper legal framework to the “public good” defence to voyeurism, and erred in his analysis of the elements of breach of trust.
An Appeal Court panel heard the appeal last September and dismissed it in a decision released Tuesday, saying the judge made no reversible error in convicting Farmer.
Farmer was accused of committing the offences at the Esquire Motel on the Bedford Highway in November and December 2017.
The evidence at trial revealed the police force placed Farmer under surveillance in September 2017 after his supervisor complained about suspicious activities.
On four different nights beginning Nov. 23, the constable was observed walking behind the motel. On some of those nights, he unscrewed bulbs in security lights and looked in the windows of rooms that were occupied by guests.
Police placed an undercover female RCMP officer in a room at the motel on the nights of Dec. 1 and Dec. 2. The curtains in the back window were left slightly open while the woman, who was wearing shorts and a tank top, sat on the bed with the lights on.
Farmer peered in the back window of that room three times the first night and five times the second night.
The incidents occurred during Farmer’s lunch breaks. He did not tell his supervisors or colleagues about his concerns or his foot patrols and did not notify dispatch that he was leaving his vehicle.
The appellate panel affirmed the guilty verdict and rejected Farmer’s argument that the judge, in convicting him of breach of trust, conflated or combined the elements of the offences.
“The trial judge conducted a separate analysis for the different counts and reviewed the elements of each offence separately,” Justice Duncan Beveridge wrote for the panel.
“It was not the mere commission of voyeurism that made the conduct a breach of trust — it was the appellant’s deliberate and persistent use of his office as a police officer to carry out his voyeuristic escapades.”