Ex-Mountie sticks by story denying responding to 2013 domestic attack by mass killer

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HALIFAX — A former Mountie is standing by his account that challenges testimony the RCMP failed to answer a home violence name in 2013 involving the Nova Scotia mass shooter.
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Troy Maxwell, a retired RCMP constable, advised a public inquiry Tuesday he had spoken with Brenda Forbes solely a few declare that her neighbour, Gabriel Wortman, was driving recklessly across the neighborhood of Portapique, N.S., in a decommissioned police automotive and was “being belligerent.”
Forbes, nonetheless, has testified earlier than the inquiry that she advised police that Wortman — accountable for killing 22 individuals on April 18-19, 2020 — had pinned his partner, Lisa Banfield, to the bottom in July 2013 with witnesses current and that nothing was finished about it.
She has denied throughout her testimony that she merely referred to as police to make a “disturbance” grievance about reckless driving, as Maxwell alleges.
The inquiry is making an attempt to type by the conflicting accounts relating to particulars of the killer’s home violence previous to the mass homicide. Its mandate contains analyzing gender-based violence — and the way it pertains to the killings.
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On Tuesday, Maxwell didn’t again down from his April 29 interview with inquiry investigators, repeating that Forbes had referred to as in a grievance to the RCMP that Wortman had been “tearing round” Portapique in an outdated police automotive at about 10 a.m. on July 6, 2013.
He testified that he gathered some info with a followup cellphone name to Forbes, took a number of names down and drove to the neighborhood. Maxwell additionally testified that he believed he had seen a Ford Crown Victoria — a mannequin of police automotive extensively used till about 2011 — in Wortman’s yard when he went to the killer’s home at “nightfall” that day to tell him of the grievance.
Nonetheless, final Friday, Banfield testified that she and Wortman didn’t personal a decommissioned police car in 2013. As nicely, the inquiry has stated the killer solely bought 4 decommissioned Ford Taurus police automobiles in 2019.
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Forbes has maintained her model of occasions. She advised the inquiry that she had referred to as RCMP and had later met with two cops at her workplace in Debert, N.S., and advised them that she had spoken to a witness who noticed Banfield being pinned to the bottom and choked by Wortman.
Banfield has confirmed the assault in her personal testimony.
Maxwell advised the inquiry Tuesday that Banfield’s testimony doesn’t change his model of what occurred.
“I recall again within the day that they used to take the outdated Crown Victoria (police automobiles), strip them down and they’d public sale them off and you’ll see individuals driving round in (them),” he testified.
“There was in my thoughts undoubtedly a Crown Vic in that (Wortman’s) yard … That’s my recollection.”
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Requested by fee counsel Emily Hill if Forbes ever advised him in regards to the assault, he responded, “No, ma’am.”
Additionally, in his model, Maxwell stated he solely visited Forbes in Debert after he investigated her grievance in Portapique. His reminiscence is foggy on when precisely he carried out that go to. He stated he went to Debert to tell her the investigation on the “disturbance” was being closed.
In the meantime, Maxwell’s reminiscence about which officers — if any — accompanied him to Portapique to analyze what he claimed was a disturbance grievance, and to satisfy Forbes in Debert, has modified over the previous two years.
The constable advised an RCMP investigator in June 2020 that Const. Karl MacIsaac went with him to Debert in 2013 to satisfy with Forbes and that Cpl. Kenda Sutherland was with him in Portapique. Nonetheless, he testified on Tuesday that his reminiscence is now that MacIsaac had accompanied him to Portapique, whereas he had problem recalling who, if anybody, accompanied him to Debert.
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The inquiry has stated in abstract paperwork that neither MacIsaac nor Sutherland had notes or particular reminiscences about visiting the cities with Maxwell. The complete police report on the July 6, 2013, response to Forbes’s grievance was purged from police data in 2015.
Maxwell stated the dearth of a written file makes it troublesome for him to clarify why he wrote down the primary identify of Lisa Banfield, or the identify of a witness to the assault — Glynn Wortman, the killer’s uncle — in his notes.
“I’m going off nothing however my reminiscence. You must perceive I may give you snippets, however so far as the file … I don’t have that,” he testified.
Joshua Bryson, a lawyer for the household of victims Peter and Pleasure Bond, requested Maxwell why he didn’t search statements from the individuals whose names he wrote down, earlier than closing the file on the grievance.
Maxwell responded that he had different circumstances to pursue. “We don’t have the flexibility to sit down round and say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to spend an hour on this.”‘
Bryson requested additionally about how Maxwell testified that he remembered knocking on the door of Wortman’s Portapique residence at “nightfall” in July after 7 p.m., when the constable’s shift was recorded in notes as ending at 5 p.m.
Maxwell stated he couldn’t recall precisely when his shift ended that day, however he stood by his reminiscence of visiting Portapique at a time when inside lights in neighbourhood homes had been being turned on.