Key witness Frank Hall leaves court during a recess in the trial of MP Dean Del Mastro in Peterborough, Ont. on Monday, June 23, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick Stephen Maher
Postmedia News
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. — Dean Del Mastro’s legal team laid the groundwork Wednesday for the Conservative MP’s defence on elections act charges, attacking the testimony of the Crown’s star witness during a tough, daylong cross-examination.
Del Mastro’s lawyer, Jeffrey Ayotte, and David Mcfadden, the lawyer for Del Mastro’s co-accused, Richard McCarthy, aggressively questioned Frank Hall, the witness whose testimony could send the defendants to jail for violating the Elections Act.
Del Mastro and McCarthy are charged with exceeding the spending limit and filing an incorrect financial return in the 2008 election. Del Mastro is also charged with exceeding the donation limit.
Hall, the former owner of Holinshed Research Group, a voter contact firm, last week testified that in a complicated series of transactions, Del Mastro paid him for election calls with a personal cheque, and asked for backdated invoices for times outside the election period.
On Wednesday, Ayotte and Mcfadden took Hall through binders of documents, questioning him about a long and complex paper trail of communications and invoices, several times suggesting his story had changed, and hinting that his testimony will be contradicted by future witnesses.
The first witness who can either corroborate or undercut Hall’s story will take the stand on Thursday. David Pennylegion, a former research analyst at Holinshed, is now a divinity student in the United States. He will testify via an online link. The trial is moving to the Oshawa courthouse for the day because it has the technical facilities to allow the connection.
Ayotte and Mcfadden both went after Hall in tense exchanges. Crown prosecutor Tom Lemon objected repeatedly, and several times Judge Lisa Cameron interrupted Ayotte to suggest his questioning was too confrontational.
When Ayotte was pushing Hall on his inability to remember a specific conversation he had with an investigator, Cameron interrupted him to warn that the “highly complicated brain function that we refer to as memory” is more complicated than his questions made out.
MP Dean Del Mastro, back, and co-accused Richard McCarthy leave court during a recess in Peterborough, Ontario on Monday June 23, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
The Crown’s case — which is based on Hall’s testimony, emails and other records — is that Hall’s firm did hundreds of hours of election calling that did not appear on Del Mastro’s campaign return.
Del Mastro has described Hall as a disgruntled former employee and said that some of the work carried out by his company had nothing to do with the election.
The two defence lawyers on Wednesday signalled that other witnesses will contradict Hall on key points.
Ayotte repeatedly asked Hall about missing cellphone records that would show when he spoke with Del Mastro.
“Can you point to any email where he asked you to backdate an invoice or was it always by phone?” asked Ayotte. “I’m going to suggest to you, sir, that every time you say you were asked to backdate a quote you say it was done by telephone, and you can’t produce one email. Would you agree with that?”
“No,” said Hall.
Frank Hall, who was identified as a witness, leaves the Provincial courthouse in Peterborough during the lunch break of the first day of the Dean Del Mastro and Richard McCarthy trial on Elections Act charges. (Peter Power for Post Media News)
Ayotte also challenged Hall about his reason for going to Elections Canada with his story about Del Mastro’s allegedly limit-exceeding contract.
Hall went to the agency after the failure of a small claims case against Del Mastro, which alleged that the MP had failed to pay him for work on a riding mapping program. Holinshed has since gone out of business and Hall has gone bankrupt.
Ayotte asked if Hall blamed his dispute with Del Mastro for his business problems. “You think that it’s because Dean Del Mastro was badmouthing you?” he said.
“I don’t know that,” said Hall.
“You think that,” said Ayotte.
“Please don’t put words in my mouth,” said Hall.
Later, Mcfadden suggested that Hall went to Elections Canada with a complaint during the 2011 election so that he could harm Del Mastro’s reputation.
“The reason is that you wanted to cause as much difficulty for Mr. Del Mastro as possible,” he said.
“That’s a yes or no question and my answer’s no,” said Hall.
Mcfadden also suggested that Hall tried to pitch a story about Del Mastro’s campaign to CTV reporter Bob Fife. Hall denied that.
The trial is to continue until at least the end of next week.
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