A Burnaby Mountie has been charged with impaired driving.
On Friday, Burnaby RCMP issued a release noting that Const. Paul Pabla, an officer at the detachment, is facing two charges of impaired driving relating to two off-duty incidents.
The officer is scheduled to appear in Surrey provincial court on March 3 and March 10.
The short press release did not provide any details about the officer or the incidents that led to the charges, including a date.
“Given the matters are before the court, no further comment will be provided at this time,” said Burnaby RCMP Supt. Dave Critchley in a statement.
The RCMP did note Pabla is currently suspended from duty and code of conduct investigations are also taking place.
A search of court records, however, shows Harinder Paul Singh Pabla is facing five counts in total, including impaired driving and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle from an incident on Sept. 17, 2015 and impaired driving, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failing to provide a sample on Oct. 12.
The charges were sworn on Feb. 22.
It’s not the first time Pabla has been in trouble with his employer.
Pabla was docked six days’ pay for uttering sexually explicit insults at a woman who stole his parking spot at a Langley mall back on New Year’s Eve 2011.
Pabla was waiting for a parking spot to open with his turn signal on when Jessica Olive took the space. Pabla ended up parking a short distance away, and as he walked toward the mall entrance, he told Olive that he had been waiting for the spot and an argument ensued, noted the agreed statement of facts from an adjudication report from 2014.
The statement continues with several sexually explicit comments from Pabla, to which Olive kicked him in the leg and knee and hit him with her purse. As they walked toward the mall entrance, Olive told him to stop following her and dropped a series of F-bombs, then uttered a racial slur before advancing toward him “in an aggressive manner, as if she was intent on assaulting him again.”
At this point, Pabla pulled out his badge, identified himself as a cop and told her that she could be arrested if she assaulted him again. Olive turned around to head back toward the mall entrance and Pabla headed the same direction to go to the dentist.
“(Pabla) proceeded to walk past her, intending to give her a wide berth. As he did so, she swung her purse at him, hitting him in the groin and head area. He swung his arm at her to ward off further blows, contacting her shoulder, then continued towards and into the mall to the adjacent dentist office.”
Olive reported the incident to police, and in 2013 a judge acquitted Pablo of the charge saying he acted in self-defence “in response to the unprovoked assault she perpetrated against him while he was walking past her.”
Nonetheless, the judge noted that Pabla had “been the author of his own misfortune” and that his “demeanour, tone, use of sarcasm and gutterspeak” was unacceptable for a 16-year RCMP officer.
The disciplinary decision noted that Pabla’s off-duty actions go against the RCMP’s core values and the adjudication board upheld the forfeiture of six day’s pay.
