Video of Doug McCallum's police interview played during public mischief trial

SURREY, B.C. -

Video of a police interview with outgoing Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum was played at his criminal trial Tuesday, and some of what he told the officer seems to contradict what was captured on surveillance video.

McCallum is charged with public mischief, accused of making a false report to police that a driver ran over his foot in a grocery store parking lot in September 2021.

During an interview with Surrey RCMP after the incident, McCallum said he was walking in the parking lot when Deborah Johnstone drove toward him.

“She pulled up in this convertible so tight and literally just about pinned me to the car,” McCallum told the officer. “Then just yelled at me, screamed and so forth.”

McCallum said Johnstone “pulled so close…she was sort of touching me a little bit.”

But in surveillance video played in court Monday, McCallum appears to walk over to her car.

McCallum said when Johnstone was leaving, she drove off quickly.

“Then she actually floored it, I mean I thought she was going to peel rubber because she floored her car,” he said in the video.

“As she tore out, she even came closer to me, like she turned right into me and then when she turned she ran over my foot, my leg.”

The surveillance video of Johnstone leaving appears to show her car moving away slowly.

Meanwhile, defence has been questioning the tactics used by the Surrey RCMP in conducting their investigation.

Sgt. Andre Johnny, working out of the Surrey detachment, was the lead investigator in the case until it was handed over to E-Division to try and avoid a conflict of interest.

While cross-examining Johnny, defence lawyer Richard Peck referred to the fact that McCallum went to hospital after the September 2021 incident and that a medical report indicates there was “swelling detected on the left foot.”

Peck asked if that is the place where McCallum said his foot had been run over.

Johnny answered, “That is correct.”

Peck also referred to investigative notes indicating that Mounties talked about putting a surveillance team on McCallum to see if he was limping and seizing his cellphone, but did not go ahead with it.

“What on earth is a surveillance team going to uncover about McCallum? He’s the mayor of Surrey. He’s a 77-year-old man going about his business. What is a surveillance team going to find out?” asks Peck.

The surveillance video captured outside the Save-On Foods where the incident unfolded and shown in court this week did not appear to show McCallum limping.

However, Peck pointed to RCMP notes from a review of the video that indicated McCallum "moved foot, leg when vehicle is moving. Can not say conclusively if foot is run over or not.”

Peck pointed Johnny to those notes.

“To this day, you can not say conclusively whether the foot was run over or not?” he asked the investigator.

“That is correct,” Johnny responded, later saying he believes "that the movement of the leg was in relation to the driver of the vehicle, putting the vehicle into drive and the leg was moved to get out of the way.”

The woman McCallum accused of running him over shared her testimony on Monday.

Johnstone says she had a heated argument with McCallum in the grocery store parking lot, where she demanded he resign.

She declined to comment on the matter outside of court in order to respect the legal process, but was all smiles as she left the courthouse.

“It’s going great, the truth will win. All you've got to do is tell the truth,” said Johnstone as she exited the building. 

With files from CTV Vancouver's Regan Hasegawa