Charges stayed against Brandon cop

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This article was published 05/12/2017 (3041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — Charges against a long-serving member of the Brandon Police Service have been stayed after the judge deemed a statement made by the officer during the investigation is inadmissible due to a violation of his rights.

Const. Grant Shane Stephenson was charged with attempting to obstruct justice during an investigation into Landon Lockhart, who is the son of fellow BPS officer Sgt. Dallas Lockhart.

Dallas Lockhart faced similar charges in connection with a related incident, which were stayed earlier this month.

Crown attorney Tim Chudy stayed Stephenson’s charge in Brandon provincial court Monday after Judge Murray Thompson granted defence counsel’s application to exclude Stephenson’s statement as evidence.

In Thompson’s written decision, he concluded Stephenson’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been breached in what he called a “deliberate decision by the professional standards unit not to inform Stephenson of the jeopardy he faced.”

The charges stem from an incident that took place July 4, 2014, at Houston’s Country Roadhouse involving Landon Lockhart, who was the suspect in an assault on an employee. His father was Stephenson’s superior officer at the time.

According to Thompson’s written decision, there appeared to be no investigation into the alleged assault at the nightclub by Stephenson until after a second incident involving Landon Lockhart occurred at the Great Western Roadhouse in November 2014. During the second incident, Landon Lockhart accused Stephenson of using excessive force while arresting him.

Following the second incident, a meeting was set up between BPS, Landon Lockhart and Stephenson to address the complaint, during which Landon Lockhart agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Stephenson.

At the end of the meeting, however, Stephenson allegedly “informed (Landon) Lockhart that he wanted to speak to him to investigate the Houston’s incident,” Thompson wrote.

Instead of dropping his complaint as he suggested at the meeting, Landon Lockhart filed a Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA) complaint a few days later, and PSU investigators were called in from the Winnipeg Police Service.

The four-page LERA complaint requested a criminal investigation be launched against Stephenson for allegedly choking Landon Lockhart when he was being detained at the Roadhouse, according to Thompson’s decision. Landon Lockhart also raised concerns Stephenson was in a conflict of interest by investigating him as a suspect in the first incident at Houston’s — four months after it took place, and immediately after he had made a complaint about being assaulted.

However, “from the outset, the PSU’s investigation was compromised by the lack of a clear mandate,” Thompson wrote, with the lines blurred between whether PSU was to be an investigation into the LERA complaint, a professional standards investigation, a criminal investigation or all three.

— Brandon Sun