The salacious details of alleged misconduct that led to charges against some of the RCMP officers working on the Surrey Six investigation are coming to light after a publication ban was lifted Wednesday.
Former Mountie Derek Brassington was supposed to be managing a potential witness connected to the infamous gangland incident that left six people dead in October 2007, including a pair of innocent bystanders.
Instead, the former sergeant ended up in a sexual relationship with her that spanned several months and provinces.
Brassington pleaded guilty this month to obstruction of justice and breach of trust.
The court heard how he billed overtime for hours spent drinking and having sex. During a trip to Toronto, the woman, who hasn't been named, spent every night in his hotel room, while the room the RCMP had rented for her remained unoccupied.
"The more attached I become to you, the more anxiety I feel," Brassington told the woman in a September 2009 text message. "There really isn't a chance in hell we could have a future together… I didn't enter this thinking we would fall in love with each other."
Even after she was relocated to a safe house, Brassington continued his sexual relationship with her there.
In an emotional address to the court, the former cop said he was looking to the Surrey Six investigation as a way of restoring public trust after working on the case surrounding the Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver Airport.
Instead, he said, "I made it 100 times worse."
Brassington was given a two-year less a day conditional sentence.
Former staff sergeant David Attew pleaded guilty to failing to maintain law and order under the RCMP Act after engaging in kissing and sexual touching with the girlfriend of a critical witness for the prosecution. At one point, he even racked up a bar tab of more than $800 with her and others.
Attew received a six-month conditional sentence.
A third officer, Cpl. Danny Michaud, pleaded guilty to the same offence as Attew and was handed a three-month conditional sentence for lying to investigators about Brassington's affair.
With files from CTV Vancouver's Maria Weisgarber
