The fate of Victoria’s suspended police chief is now in the hands of B.C.’s top judge.
Arguments have wrapped up in Frank Elsner’s bid to end an external investigation into his conduct, and the chief justice of the BC Supreme Court will now weigh the arguments before making a decision.
In court Wednesday, lawyers for the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner argued Elsner should be investigated for several reasons, including that he misled the public.
Elsner told media nearly a year ago that an internal investigator found no inappropriate relationship between him and a subordinate officer’s wife.
But the investigator did find the relationship inappropriate, calling Twitter messages exchanged between the two “salacious and sexually charged,” and said the pair shared a hug and kiss in Elsner’s office.
The court also heard how the mayors of Victoria and Esquimalt, Lisa Helps and Barb Desjardins, negotiated a deal with the chief, who accepted a formal reprimand in exchange for the investigation to be kept confidential and final.
The OPCC argued in court that the mayors, who co-chair the local police board, didn’t have the authority to make that kind of deal.
The hearing has also sparked new questions about how Helps and Desjardins handled the investigation and whether one of them flat-out lied about it.
When news of the scandal broke on Dec. 6, 2015, Desjardins told CTV News that there was no indication of an inappropriate relationship between Elsner and the officer’s wife.
This week in court, a judge heard that the police board was informed of the sexually charged messages well before December.
“She’s misled the media on this, she’s misled the taxpayers on this, she’s misled the public on this,” said former B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed. “Her initial investigator, a very qualified lawyer from Vancouver, came out and said these are issues. But when this became a public media situation, she again denied that there was an inappropriate relationship.”
CTV News reached out to Desjardins Wednesday to clarify the contradiction between her statement to media and the investigator’s report.
“I don’t know I can answer any of that. Again, because there is a lot of process going on, and what has been heard at court yesterday I haven’t been fully briefed on,” she said.
Helps turned down a request for an interview, also saying she wasn’t able to say anything while the matter was before the courts.
Throughout the investigations both mayors have said they weren’t trying to mislead the public.
But Heed maintains the mayors has mishandled the investigation from the start, potentially costing taxpayers millions to pay legal fees, investigators and the suspended chief’s full salary.
“They bear some responsibility on why this has gotten to the point it has right now, and again, at great cost to the taxpayer.”
The contents of the Twitter messages and resulting internal investigation are currently the subject of a publication ban that is being contested by CTV and the Times Colonist.
The judge has indicated he will rule on the ban after deciding whether Elsner has a case to halt the investigation.
With reports from CTV Vancouver Island's Robert Buffam and Chandler Grieve.
