An RCMP officer who was stationed stationed in Bell Island more than six years ago has been convicted of two firearm offences.

Michael Wheeler was found guilty of careless use of a firearm and pointing a firearm. The verdict was rendered earlier this week by Justice Sandra Chaytor following a trial at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s.

Wheeler was charged following an incident that happened Jan. 23, 2018, at the home of another RCMP officer, a friend, on Bell Island.

According to evidence at the trial earlier this year, Wheeler had just gotten off shift at around midnight and was still wearing his uniform, including his loaded firearm in his holster, when he arrived at the residence just after midnight. While there, Wheeler, his friend and his friend’s girlfriend were socializing and drinking alcohol.

The woman testified that when her boyfriend left the room, she and Wheeler began playfully wrestling. It was then, she said, he pulled out his firearm, pressed it against her face and then stood up and pointed it at her. She said when the friend returned to the room, he told Wheeler to stop.

However, at the trial, the friend denied seeing a firearm or having to intervene.

Wheeler denied the allegations and denied removing the gun from his holster.

However, the judge didn’t buy Wheeler’s version of events, saying he was not credible, giving varying versions of events in various statements.

“I do not believe Mr. Wheeler’s evidence that he did not put his firearm to (her) face or point it at her,” Justice Chaytor said in her decision. “Nor do i find his evidence raised a reasonable doubt.”

Chaytor said Wheeler was a “calm and composed” when he testified at trial. However, she added demeanour on the stand can be an unreliable predictor in determining guilt.

In citing law, she said coherent testimony, “can come from the mouths of inverted liars.

“My concern was not so much in the manner in which Mr. Wheeler testified, but the substance of what he had to say and how i found it unworthy of belief when considered in the context of the whole of the evidence.”

She said her biggest concern of the difference in what Wheeler told police happened after the incident shortly after and what he testified at trial.

In a statement to RNC, Wheeler did not mention the wrestling — despite the woman’s testimony that it happened multiple times that night — or incidents that centered around the gun, including his testimony that she tried to grab it from his holster. She said it was, “in an effort to not be charged.”

On Jan. 30, 2018, a week after the incident, Wheeler sent the woman a message, apologizing for, “freaking her out.” He claimed it was when she brushed up the gun that night.

He was also inconsistent, the judge said, in describing the times Wheeler, his friend and the woman were not in each other’s presence that night. Wheeler said it was just for bathroom and cigarette breaks. He also failed to mention to police that the woman left the residence. He testified at the trial she left, but said it was due to an argument she had with her boyfriend. — which, the woman testified, was when she left