Witness fails to appear at cop’s harassment trial

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This article was published 25/11/2017 (2884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An alleged victim of a Winnipeg police officer accused of using his position to harass vulnerable women failed to show up in court Friday to testify against him.

Three other women have already testified Remi Van Den Driessche — while in uniform, and sometimes with another officer present — would show up at their homes, call them on the phone and stop them on the street, trying to get sexual favours.

The 43-year-old Winnipeg Police Service officer has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault, eight counts of criminal harassment and two counts each of extortion and breach of trust dating to 2011. He is on trial in provincial court in front of Judge Sandra Chapman.

The charges against Van Den Driessche were announced in 2014, when he had been working for the police force for eight years. His trial began last fall, and resumed this week after more than a year’s delay.

Defence lawyer Richard Wolson told court this week the criminal charges have been hanging over his client’s head, and suggested the issue has been exacerbated by the failure of some Crown witnesses to come to court on time.

“He has been held ransom by witnesses who, for one reason or another, don’t come to court when they’re supposed to,” Wolson said.

“There has to be a point where there’s some finality and that he has his life back.”

During Van Den Driessche’s trial in October 2016, a sex worker testified the District 13 officer began showing up at her residence, even breaking down a locked door to see her because he wanted oral sex.

She said she always refused Van Den Driessche’s advances, but alleged he touched her without her consent — on one occasion, putting his hand up her skirt; on another, sticking his finger down her throat.

The alleged harassment began in September 2011, when the then-29-year-old woman was walking along Jarvis Street and a police cruiser pulled up. She was in violation of a court order meant to keep her away from “sex-trade areas,” but instead of charging her with a breach of those conditions, she testified Van Den Driessche asked her to show him her breasts.

“I was kind of shocked, I looked (around) and I said, ‘In front of all these people?’ And he says, yeah, like who’s going to say something? Who would they exactly phone, the police?” she said.

“I was pretty embarrassed, like, it’s broad daylight. I mean yes, I do what I do, but I just don’t go around showing people my body parts.”

The woman testified Van Den Driessche asked her what she did while working in the sex trade. She told him she was HIV-positive and would offer customers oral sex.

She said Van Den Driessche “basically asked if I was any good… I wasn’t expecting him to say something like that. I wasn’t expecting to get asked questions like that by a police officer — ‘What exactly do you do, sexually?’”

After that, Van Den Driessche repeatedly showed up to her home at the Sutherland Hotel on Main Street, always in uniform. He would “just randomly drop by” between 20 and 40 times.

“I wasn’t comfortable with the fact that he was asking me for sexual things, and I wasn’t about to give them anyways,” she said, adding she feared being seen with a uniformed police officer because of the drug and gang activity at the hotel.

“I told him, ‘Are you trying to get me killed?’” she testified. The woman told court she decided not to pursue a Law Enforcement Review Agency complaint against the officer once she was told Van Den Driessche would be informed who was complaining about him.

Another woman, who was 32 when she testified in court last fall, said Van Den Driessche arrested her on a warrant in 2012 and then asked her to go on a date with him.

He dropped her off at home after the warrant was dealt with and asked her inappropriate questions about what she liked sexually, she testified.

Within days, he showed up at her home, where her spouse was present, she said, and told her she was ruining her life because she was pregnant.

The woman said she changed her phone number after Van Den Driessche called her at home, but she said he still managed to phone her again before she found a different place to live. She told court she hung up on him both times.

“I was annoyed because I had to change my phone number… The second time, I don’t know how he got it, and that’s what bothered me,” she said.

Chapman also heard this week from a 30-year-old woman, who alleged Van Den Driessche harassed her for more than a year.

The trial is set to run for another week.

katie.may@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @thatkatiemay