OPP officer denies stalking city woman

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OPP officer denies stalking city woman

Postby Thomas » Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:04 am

A quest for tech help turned into criminal harassment charges, as the rumour mill ensnared one local OPP officer, argued defense attorney Bill Carroll on Tuesday.

Adrian Garner faces stalking charges for waiting outside a Cornwall Square phone store for one of its employees last Valentine’s Day. Tuesday was the second day of the two-day trial for the cop who has 19 years of service with the Long Sault detachment.

He was charged Feb. 24 with watching and besetting.

Garner testified he was there to clear the air on word that he was stalking the store employee — a concern that had reportedly led to a complaint to his commanding officer.

Garner was told Feb. 14 that the Telus employee had called his superior officer to complain, although that wasn’t true.

However, Garner didn’t know that, and concerned about his professional reputation, he said, he went to see her.

This came after several months of frequent visits to the store, a judge heard in the two-day trial this week.

Having bought an Android smart phone in 2011 from the particular female employee, Garner returned several times in the first month to figure out emailing, calling and texting.

He then returned four or five times a month the next few months with questions about the phone and accessories — typically dealing with the same female employee each time.

She said his visits went from “too flirtatious” to a “nuisance” — making her uncomfortable to the point she avoided him by staying in the back room.

Yet her attempts to avoid him were deliberately “unobvious,” she testified.

And on Feb. 14 she once again hid in the stock room as Garner approached, leaving a co-worker to tell Garner she was “uncomfortable” and didn’t want to speak to him.

The female employee said she was upset seeing Garner that day, particularly because a friend of his had confronted her earlier in her shift, demanding if she was “dating a black cop.”

She told Richard Dore — a friend of Garner’s — he’d been stalking her, so she’d complained to his superior officer.

And it was on Dore’s information, that Garner showed up Feb. 14.

“In my profession, a rumour like that, that I was stalking her . . . it would affect my job and caused me some concern,” Garner said on the stand.

“I went to speak to (her) about the rumour and clarify what was going on.”

However, the Crown argues that Garner should have listened when a store employee told him three times her upset co-worker didn’t want to talk to him.

Instead, he waited on a bench inside the mall, in case she changed her mind, he said.

She didn’t, instead calling a male friend to walk her to her car, while Garner remained on the bench.

Garner has been suspended with pay.

Justice Allan Letourneaux said he will deliver his decision in February.

By Kathryn Burnham, Cornwall Standard Freeholder
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 8:51:47 EST PM

http://www.standard-freeholder.com/2012 ... city-woman
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