by Corey Larocque
Ottawa Sun
The child-torture trial of an RCMP officer and his wife, accused of starving his 11-year-old son and keeping him chained up in the basement, is on hold while lawyers wait to learn what can be learned from a personality test he wrote when he became a Mountie.
Defence lawyer Robert Carew asked for an adjournment Wednesday after he learned the Crown got a warrant to make the police force provide results of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a personality test the Mounties use when hiring recruits.
Carew said the defence has a right to know what information the Crown was seeking so he could address the results on his client’s behalf.
“My position is we’re entitled to know the case we’re required to meet,” Carew said.
“I don’t know why it’s being done this late.”
Judge Robert Maranger agreed with Crown prosecutor Mike Boyce the Crown can continue to develop its case, even while a trial is going on.
Boyce said prosecutors want access to the father’s employment medical records, anticipating defence lawyers might argue the man’s not criminally responsible because of psychiatric issues.
The records were expected to be made available Wednesday or Thursday and the trial to resume Thursday morning.
The 44-year-old man and his 36-year-old second wife, a federal public servant, are on trial, each facing aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life charges. He faces additional charges of sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon. She faces an additional charge of assault with a weapon.
A court-ordered ban prohibits the publication of information that might identify the victim, now a 13-year-old boy. He testified earlier in the trial about abuse at the hands of his father and step-mother.
The trial, which had been in recess since October, resumed Tuesday for four days this week. The man’s brother, a priest, testified Tuesday and Wednesday.