Trial begins for Hamilton officer accused of forgeries

A Hamilton police officer is alleged to have forged signatures on documents related to the disposal of weapons taken on different occasions from two homes on the Mountain.

The criminal trial of Const. Darren Smith opened Monday with witnesses telling court that the signatures appearing on police documents were forgeries.

The documents were routine waiver forms that police use when someone has a weapon they'd like police to collect and dispose of properly.

Audrey Jolly testified her husband, Ronald, was near death in the fall of 2017 when he told her he had a hunting rifle and shotgun hidden in a basement ceiling that should be removed from the house. She called the RCMP and was told to call Hamilton police so they could pick up the weapons.

She testified that Smith showed up a few days before Ronald Jolly died on Nov. 24, 2017, and took the two weapons away. Audrey Jolly said she didn't sign anything and her husband couldn't have signed anything because he was comatose at the time.

Later, a Hamilton police detective visited her and told her, We just think this gentleman (Smith) hasn't been keeping his paperwork up," Jolly testified.

He showed her the disposal waiver, which appeared to have been signed by her husband. Jolly told the detective it wasn't her husband's signature and she then showed the detective her husband's signature from his driver's licence.

More problematic was that the signature on the waiver was allegedly dated Nov. 30, 2017 - six days after Ronald Jolly had died. The person attesting to the signature was Darren Smith, a 19-year member of Hamilton police.

Ruth Shkumat, a retired nurse, testified that her parents died within a year of each other in 2017 and 2018. Shkumat, her sister and her brother-in-law began cleaning out the house to put it up for sale and came across a hunting rifle and some ammunition.

They decided to call Hamilton police to pick up the weapon and ammunition, and Smith arrived on June 13, 2018, she stated.

He took them and she asked if she needed to sign anything. Smith told her no, she testified.

I was puzzled by that," Shkumat told court. Being a nurse, you have to sign your life away for everything."

She, too, was later visited by a Hamilton police detective. He showed Shkumat the waiver allegedly signed by her and she told him that wasn't her signature. Smith had attested to the signature.

Court also heard the date on the waiver was approximately three weeks after Smith had visited the house.

Brien Smyth, a now-retired investigator in Hamilton police's professional standards branch, testified he was asked to conduct an investigation of Smith's activities.

He told court when he interviewed Shkumat, he brought with him a blank weapons disposal waiver and had Shkumat sign it so he could compare the signature with the one on the waiver Smith had filed.

Smith's lawyer pointed out to the court that the weapons removed on both occasions were properly destroyed.

The trial is scheduled to continue Tuesday.

Smith has faced charges before. He was charged by Guelph police with uttering a death threat in relation to an off-duty domestic incident in 2013, but found acquitted.

He also faced a charge of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act in relation to the incident that was dropped because the Hamilton Police Service prosecutor determined there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

Steve Buist is a Hamilton-based investigative reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbuist@thespec.com