RNC officer Sean Kelly found guilty of making indecent phone calls

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer Sean Kelly was convicted in Corner Brook Thursday of making indecent phone calls and misleading police by making false statements.

The charges relate to a case from 2012, in which a young woman alleged someone made two indecent phone calls to her place of work.

• RNC Const. Sean Kelly on stand at lewd phone call trial

The complainant, whose identity is protected under a publication ban, testified that someone had made comments and complimented her chest, and also asked to have sex with her.

Kelly tried to pin the phone calls on another person in order to divert attention during the police investigation.

In his statement, Judge Wayne Gorman said he "concluded that the Crown has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr. Kelly committed both of the offence with which he is charged."

Gorman said the RNC's investigation into the calls should have been handled differently.

The officer who received the original complaint about the calls traced the phone number to a police cellphone, and called the number.

Conflict of interest

She said Kelly identified himself during that call, and seemed "confused and puzzled" when the situation was explained to him and added that no one had borrowed his phone.

That officer brought the matter to a Sgt. Buckle, who called Kelly later that day to give him a "heads-up" that his name would be put into the police file.

Gorman said that "neither Sgt. Buckle nor any police officer should be giving a potential suspect a 'heads up' in relation to a criminal investigation."

Tim Buckle is a former president of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association, which represents rank-and-file officers. 

Gorman said Buckle's union role created "a significant conflict of interest," but such situations are for the RNC to consider.

Gorman also added the investigation "should never have been handed to [RNC] Staff Sgt. Elliott," who took over the investigation and, according to Gorman, had ongoing undocumented conversations about the case with Kelly.

Gorman noted that Elliott, who worked closely with Kelly in the RNC's Corner Brook detachment, was in a difficult position as he investigated a complaint against a colleague in a small office. 

Kelly claimed potential informant used his phone

During the course of the investigation, Kelly alleged he had allowed someone else to borrow his phone twice on the day that the calls were made.

Kelly's defence said that person was a potential informant Kelly was grooming. According to Kelly's statement to police, this person made two calls from Kelly's police-issued cellphone, but Kelly couldn't hear what was said.

He also stated that he did not check what number the person had called, which Judge Gorman said would be strange if Kelly suspected this potential informant had deeper connections to the drug trade in Corner Brook.

Gorman called the entire sequence of events in Kelly statement "quite a coincidence," if they were in fact true.

The complainant also later told police a man she did not know entered her place of employment and mumbled something she couldn't make it, but said she was sure it wasn't the same voice that made the phone calls.

Kelly's potential informant told police they went to the workplace of the complainant after learning they were a suspect in the investigation to state they had never made the calls.

Kelly was previously suspended from the force without pay.

Meanwhile, the RNC said in a statement that its Professional Standards Division is still to make a decision about Kelly's future with the force, now that the courts have ruled in the case.