A former B.C. Mountie pleaded not guilty on Monday to a charge he perjured himself during testimony at his criminal trial nearly seven years ago.
In submissions made in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, the Crown said that in January 2006, while then-Const. Khomphet Khamphoune was employed as an RCMP officer, a fellow officer reported that he had downloaded what was believed to be child pornography on a personal computer.
The child porn allegation against Khamphoune triggered an investigation which led to a search warrant being executed at both his workplace desk and locker and at his home. Police seized several gas masks believed to be RCMP property at his home.
He was charged with theft under $5,000 and went to trial in Provincial Court in Richmond in July 2008. During his trial, he admitted that several of the gas masks were RCMP property but that he intended to return that property.
But he also testified that he purchased one of the masks, which had his name on the netting, at a quartermaster store at a Canadian Forces base in Petawawa, Ont., in 2002, Crown counsel Jeremy Hermanson told Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon on Monday.
Hermanson said that the mask in question was never sold by the quartermaster and in fact, the military never sold such items.
He said the gas mask was not assembled until 2004, meaning that it was impossible for it to have been purchased in 2002 as Khamphoune claimed at trial.
Khamphoune was acquitted of the theft charge. He has not been charged with possession of child pornography.
The trial, which is expected to run nine days, opened with a voir dire, or a trial-within-a-trial, in which the accused’s lawyer challenged the admissibility of evidence that was seized.
Jay Straith told the judge that his client’s rights had been violated because the information-to-obtain (ITO) the search warrant, a document that outlines the police rationale for the search, was designed for one purpose, namely to be leaked to the news media and damage the reputation of Khamphoune.
Hermanson is expected to argue that there was sufficient grounds in the ITO to warrant the judge approving the search and that the evidence seized should therefore be ruled admissible in court.
Khamphoune was fired after a disciplinary board found he’d shoplifted from a grocery store and then lied about it to his commanding officer, according to a story published in the Vancouver Sun in October 2010.
The story noted that Khamphoune was caught shoplifting $133 worth of over-the-counter drugs while off-duty in May 2008 at an Extra foods in East Vancouver. He pleaded guilty and received a conditional discharge.
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