Former Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum not guilty of mischief

Former Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum has been found not guilty of public mischief by a provincial court judge.

The ruling at the high-profile trial came down Monday morning.

McCallum was charged after telling police that a woman opposed to his plans to replace the Surrey RCMP with a municipal police force used her car to run over his foot in a grocery store parking lot last year.

Judge Reginald Harris says the verdict hinged on whether McCallum intentionally misled police and, if so, whether he intended for Debi Johnstone to be suspected of a crime she did not commit.

Police declined to charge Johnstone after the Sept. 4, 2021 confrontation. But Harris says he found Johnstone’s testimony unreliable when she said she didn’t run over McCallum’s foot.

Harris says although video showed McCallum was not “pinned” by Johnstone’s car, as the former mayor had said, he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that McCallum’s foot had been run over.

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Current Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke has previously said McCallum’s legal bills would not be paid for using the public purse.

“The City will continue to explore its options in relation to Mr. McCallum’s legal issues and I am expecting an update in the next few weeks,” she said in a statement to OMNI News Monday, following the verdict.

“I will also be asking for a review of the Indemnification By Law so it can be improved to ensure this won’t happen again. This matter will be brought to Council for consideration at a future date,” Locke added.

The court has heard Johnstone was collecting signatures for a group called Keep the RCMP in Surrey when McCallum claims she nearly pinned him against the back of his car before running over his foot.

Dennis Chimich, an expert in the biomechanics of bone fractures, testified earlier this month for McCallum’s defence team, which presented evidence to suggest the then-mayor was not lying about his foot being run over.

Chimich told the provincial court trial that he calculated that the rear right wheel of Johnstone’s car could have caused soft tissue damage, as indicated in a medical report he examined.

However, Crown attorney Richard Fowler suggested a study Chimich relied on to prepare a report involved cadavers’ feet being run over by a car, and that swelling in a live person could result from other factors including age, fluid retention, and medications.

In Canada, the maximum punishment for committing the crime of public mischief is five years in jail.