A trial was supposed to begin Monday for a Kelowna RCMP officer a victim in a case he was involved in.
Instead, the BC Prosecution Service says the case has been put over to the new year because Const. Sean Eckland has indicated his intention to plead guilty.
Eckland was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice for what the BCPS said in a news release were his actions in a case involving alleged intimate partner violence in Lake Country.
The prosecution service said the charges were approved by an experienced Crown counsel with no prior or current connection with the officer.
He was the lead investigator in the 2018 domestic aggravated assault case that ended in the accused being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
The allegations that the officer sent explicit text messages to the victim in the case first in Dec. 2019 and he was suspended with pay at the time.
Eckland’s case has now been rescheduled to January 15, 2024.
The RCMP have scheduled a conduct hearing for Eckland for March 25, 2024. Those hearings are used by the force when it is seeking to dismiss one of its members.
Another former Kelowna RCMP officer, Brian Burkett, to breach of trust for sexting and sexually harassing women he met in connection to his duties as a police officer. He avoided jail and received a nine-month conditional sentence.
