Kim Bolan, Vancouver, B.C. (Vancouver Sun) – The trial of a former drug cop charged with breaching RCMP security to get information about the Bacons has been delayed until December.
Rapinder (Rob) Sidhu’s trial was supposed to wrap up Friday, but a defence motion to broaden the scope of cross-examination of a senior RCMP officer won’t be heard now until Dec. 10.
And depending on the ruling of Surrey Provincial Judge John Lenaghan on that motion, additional court dates have been set for February and March 2011 in case they’re needed.
Supt. Wayne Rideout testified earlier this week that he recognized Sidhu’s voice on a 2007 call to the RCMP radio room — by someone posing as a member of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team — requesting the address of the Bacon brothers.
An operator provided the address before discovering a police identification number the caller gave was bogus.
Sidhu’s lawyer, Matt Nathanson, said he wants to broaden his cross-examination to include the testimony of Rideout — the former commanding officer in charge of investigating the 2007 death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski — at the Braidwood inquiry. Nathanson told the court earlier in the week he hoped to call Rideout’s reliability into question: “The tap-dancing under oath at the Braidwood inquiry by this officer … reflects his credibility.”
Nathanson also objected several times Friday during the testimony of Tim Matheson, a shift supervisor at the RCMP’s Operations Communications Centre, which received the suspect call.
Nathanson said he needed more disclosure from prosecutor Donna Ballyk before she could ask Matheson about the phone system in the centre.
But Ballyk argued that she was simply asking questions to deal with issues Nathanson raised while questioning earlier police witnesses on the stand.
“Threads have been pulled that need to be put back in place,” Ballyk said.
Lenaghan agreed and let her continue.
Matheson said operator Julie Sanghera, who provided the address to the caller, knew immediately there was a problem.
“Julie first came to me and said basically, ‘Tim, I think I f—-ed up,’” Matheson testified.
He said he listened to the call and agreed “that something didn’t sound right.”
“The fact the Bacon brothers were mentioned elevated the importance of this to me,” Matheson said, adding that he took a disk with the call to two senior RCMP officers at the Surrey detachment.
Earlier Friday, RCMP Sgt. John Furac testified that he recognized Sidhu’s voice as the caller on the tape.
He said he worked with Sidhu in the Surrey drug section for about three years and then continued to see him around the detachment for another two.
Sidhu quit the RCMP in July 2003 in the midst of an internal investigation. He has a subsequent fraud conviction and was also charged in March 2010 in relation to a domestic dispute.
Furac admitted under cross-examination that he had not spoken to Sidhu for about five years when he heard a recording of the call as part of the criminal investigation on Sept. 27, 2007.
Nathanson has suggested that several RCMP witnesses may have been influenced in their identification by information circulating in police circles about Sidhu’s alleged criminal associations at the time.
Nathanson asked Furac about a mass e-mail sent out later in 2007 to hundreds of RCMP officers naming Sidhu as the person who made the call.
Furac said he didn’t remember getting the e-mail.
The RCMP had to notify the gang-linked siblings of the security breach, and the Bacon brothers were forced to move after their address was provided.
At the time, there had already been attempts on the lives of two of the three brothers by rival gangsters.
Sidhu, who lives in Abbotsford, was charged in January 2008 with impersonating a police officer.
Two earlier trial dates in the case were postponed at the request of his defence.
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