Updated: Mar 23 at 2:30 p.m.
A Halifax Regional Police officer convicted of voyeurism is still getting paid.
The department confirmed Friday that Const. George Farmer remains suspended with pay.
The force didn’t provide further comment on why Farmer remains employed after being convicted in January of voyeurism, trespassing at night and breach of trust over his actions outside Bedford’s Esquire Motel in late November and early December 2017.
According to testimony during Farmer’s trial, a tip to the officer’s supervisor led to him being put under surveillance. He was caught repeatedly unscrewing light bulbs outside the motel on the Bedford Highway and looking through windows during lunch breaks of his night shifts.
Farmer was observed peeking into the room of an undercover female RCMP officer eight times. Farmer’s lawyer, Joel Pink, argued during the trial that he was checking to see whether under-aged women were being forced into prostitution or if other crimes were being committed.
According to Halifax Regional Municipality’s 2018 statement of compensation, Farmer makes $121,058.21 annually, including benefits.
Farmer was suspended with pay on Dec. 6, 2017, the same day he was arrested. After an initial 60-day suspension with pay guaranteed him according to the Police Act, Chief Jean-Michel Blais cut off Farmer’s pay and allowances.
Farmer won an appeal of that decision to the Nova Scotia Police Review Board and had his pay reinstated retroactively until the completion of the criminal case and any subsequent disciplinary proceedings. He has been paid ever since.
Pink was out of the country Friday and could not be reached for comment about whether he was appealing the trial judge’s ruling or whether there are further proceedings.
On March 15, lawyers for the municipality and Blais argued unsuccessfully in Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the board’s decision be thrown out.
According to court documents, they argued the board didn't conduct what's known as a de novo hearing that would have re-examined whether Farmer’s pay should have been cut off rather than critiquing the decision-making process of Blais.
According to the documents, Blais considered Farmer’s actions a violation of a “core value” of policing not to break the law.
“Chief Blais offered the opinion that to continue pay and benefits would erode public trust and that the public would ask why he should receive pay and benefits,” read the documents.
Blais said that in making his decision he had not considered previous commendations awarded to Farmer, the financial harm cutting off pay to his family might cause or the presumption of innocence until proven guilty because the issue of cutting off pay is an administrative one.
Justice Jamie Campbell found that the board had in effect conducted a de novo hearing.
“The principles in the statute reflect the need to balance the interests of the public and the protection of the rights of the officer,” reads Campbell’s decision.