About a month ago I was given the phone by my my wife with the words: “The Police are asking for you?” I thought she was joking until I talked to the person on the other end. She informed me that they (the RCMP) had a subpoena for my at the police station. I have watched enough TV to know a subpoena had something to do with court, but not enough real knowledge to understand exactly what it meant. I asked for more information, which the lady was happy to provide, including the name of the accused (not me), court date and offense. I did the detective work in my head and realized that the trial had to do with our van being stolen about a year ago (see this link for the post I did about it) and I was being called as a witness.

Well, the trail date finally came and after the confusing gong show of finding parking, going through security and finding the courtroom, I was really to testify. Seriously…it was confusing…there was no one there to help (even the information desk was frustratingly empty), but after tracking down someone who didn’t look like a criminal, I got instructions and I was off to court.

I was lucky enough to meet the prosecutor at the courtroom doors and she gave me the “low down.” She also introduced me to the two officers who arrested the individual. She informed told me she didn’t think the accused would show and that if he did, it would not go to trial as he didn’t have a case. However, as a precaution, she began to brief me with what could happen if the trial began. I wasn’t nervous until she began briefing me for cross examination, then I got a little nervous as to what to expect and the specific questions that could be asked. To this day, I still am not sure why I was called to testify, as Laurie and I were not present during the theft and all I could do was say that it was indeed my van and the accused did not have my permission to drive it – I would have thought that the broken steering column would have cleared that bit of information up.

All that said, I was happy to do my duty and in the end, the guy didn’t appear. His attorney believes he is serving a several year sentence in B.C. (Why the provincial computer systems aren’t linked still mystifies me). Anyway, it was an interesting experience to say the least and one that provided me with many stories.