No witness intimidation after guilty plea, defence argues
Bizarre tale of workplace harassment at Base Gagetown leads to threat charge, followed by obstruction of justice prosecution
A Burton man couldn’t have been trying to get a witness in a threat case to recant his statement because he’d already pleaded guilty to the threat, the defence argued Tuesday.
But the prosecution said that didn’t make any sense.
Dennis Jan Van Wissen, 58, of Lindsay Lane in Burton, stood trial in Fredericton provincial court Tuesday on charges of obstruction of justice by attempting to dissuade a witness, and trying to intimidate that same witness.
The case stems from an incident at Base Gagetown in which Van Wissen, a former soldier who was working as a civilian employee, attended a mediation session Dec. 10, 2019, on base over a workplace complaint he’d laid.
Van Wissen said a superior, Capt. Mitchell Hargreaves, had previously been physically aggressive and abusive toward him, and the mediation session had been about the complaint he’d filed.
Also attending that meeting was Hargreaves’ boss, Major Rodney Normore, who testified that within a couple of minutes of the meeting getting underway, Van Wissen made a threat against Hargreaves, and the mediator stopped the session immediately.
That led to Van Wissen being charged criminally for uttering a threat. Though he’d initially denied the charge, court heard, he changed his plea to guilty Nov. 4, 2020, when he was scheduled to stand trial.
Normore said he attended the courthouse for the trial on that date but didn’t have to testify due to the guilty plea.
“I kind of forgot about the whole situation,” he said in court Tuesday, testifying at Van Wissen’s trial on the obstruction and witness-intimidation trial.
Mysterious packet appears
Normore said when he arrived at work the morning of Jan. 25, 2021, there was an envelope on his chair, containing numerous documents, including a letter from Van Wissen.
"At 0930hr on 26 January 2021, is the last chance for you to recant your allegations,” the cover letter, signed by Van Wissen, stated.
“You are going to cease your own Canadian military career. On your own accord. I'm going to assist in the process. In a public forum."
Normore said he assumed referred to the statement he gave to military police about the threat at the mediation session.
He connected the packet to the threat case because he received them the day before Van Wissen was scheduled to be sentenced.
Furthermore, the witness said, the packet included a copy of Hargreaves’ victim-impact statement and an image of an audio recording of Normore’s statement to military police about the threat.
In the documents, court heard, Van Wissen alleged Normore and Hargreaves were embarrassments to the Canadian Forces and “a disgrace to Canada,” and that he would see them drummed out of the military, and he planned to shame Normore publicly..
“To me, they were upsetting,” Normore testified, noting he felt Van Wissen was trying to get him to change his story about the threat.
“If I didn’t, he’d ruin my career … I perceived there was some type of threat in there.”
Van Wissen, testifying in his own defence Tuesday, confirmed he’d prepared those documents and left them for Normore.
He noted he pleaded guilty to the December 2019 threat and was satisfied with the conditional discharge he was given.
‘Nothing to do with uttering a threat’
Van Wissen, who no longer works at Base Gagetown, said the recantation he was seeking was about other statements Normore had made about him in the workplace, unrelated to the threat.
He acknowledged that he’d received a letter from a commandant the month after he pleaded guilty, detailing that the workplace violence by Hargreaves was found to have occurred. He alleged the Canadian Forces held that letter back until he’d pleaded guilty to the threat.
Van Wissen also said the material he sent to Normore had “nothing to do with uttering a threat.”
But when cross-examining the witness, prosecutor Rebecca Butler argued that didn’t make sense.
If it was about getting Normore to withdraw other statements unrelated to the threat, she said, why demand that he show up in court on the date of sentencing or include the victim-impact statement and the CD image.
Van Wissen said he wanted to call Normore out on “his lies,” and that had to happen in a venue that was on the record.
“It has to be done in a court,” he said.
‘There was no evidence to give’
Winters said the Crown’s case is lacking because it didn’t prove that her client intended to dissuade Normore from testifying in the threat case.
In fact, she argued, Normore didn’t meet the definition of witness or justice-system participant at the time he received the envelope because Van Wissen had pleaded guilty. “There was no evidence to give,” Winters said, noting there was no trial.
She also argued the documents made no mention of a threat of violence or damage to property.
But Butler said provoking a state of fear in someone isn’t limited to bodily harm or damage to property. Van Wissen was threatening to tank Normore’s career in the Canadian Forces, she said.
“That threat bothered him [Normore],” the prosecutor said. “It meant a lot to him.”
Just because there was a guilty plea doesn’t mean Normore had no role any longer in the case, Butler argued. A guilty plea doesn’t conclude a case, she said, and the courts have seen plenty of defendants seek to withdraw such pleas.
“They still have a possibility of giving evidence,” the prosecutor said.
She also argued the notion that the packet had nothing to do with the threat case didn’t hold water. The documents related to the threat prosecution, she said, and they were left for the witness the day before sentencing.
And why else would Van Wissen demand Normore attend court in the threat case but to alter its outcome, Butler said.
The letter confirming his workplace-violence complaint sparked a desire to turn things around in the threat prosecution, the prosecutor said.
“It’s that letter that’s the catalyst,” she said.
Judge Natalie LeBlanc reserved her decision on the case to March 27.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.