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FILE- Const. Sean Eckland

A former Kelowna cop whose indiscretions blew up his career and wreaked havoc on his family now sees the incident as a “blessing.”

Const. Sean Eckland said Tuesday that his 2019 sexting scandal was a turning point in his life. By the time the media and his employer, the RCMP, caught wind of the fact he’d exchanged explicit messages and photos with a victim of a crime he was investigating, he had become someone not even he liked.

“I was no longer a nice person,” Eckland told the court during his sentencing hearing.

“I hated a lot of people. I faked my way through days, not caring if I died in my sleep, or if I was killed by someone on duty. I stayed alive for my kids, despite knowing that at the time I was not a good dad.”

He said he would yell and scream at them with little provocation and everyone, including his parents, “walked on eggshells” around him.

The sexting relationship he had with a crime victim was described in a psychological assessment as a coping mechanism for the PTSD and ADHD he was suffering. Eckland offered further insight into that assessment in his statement.

“I did not use alcohol or drugs, but I used the sex thing to escape reality and my misery,” he said.

When it all came to light, however, even that avenue of escape ended. He told his wife what had transpired — somewhere between six or greater sexual exchanges on text — and she told him to leave. He resigned himself to whatever came next and was surprised when his wife offered support.

Together they started working their way out of the problem he’d created.

“When things came out in the news, my son had a hockey tournament and, at first, I refused to leave the house,” Eckland said.

“My wife said... 'I'm going out in public. So are you. You and I are going to hold hands and hold our heads up high.'”

Eckland said his wife offered the strength and courage to keep going.

“Now, in such a weird way, and not to take away all the pain I've caused to everybody, what has happened has been a blessing for me,” Eckland said. He sought professional help, repaired his relationships with his family, and forged a new way forward.

“This experience has allowed me to take it and use it as a learning tool for my kids,” he said.

“I've explained to them how even adults make big mistakes, but the key is to take accountability and to understand that there will be consequences for our actions.”

That is what prompted him to resign from the RCMP and plead guilty to the obstruction charge he was in court for.

His defence lawyer John Benkendorf said that the guilty plea did not come as a resignation “to the inevitable.”

"His guilty plea was entered by him with full knowledge of the frailties of the Crown’s case as it relates to proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he had the requisite specific intent to extract justice,” Benkendorf said.

Benkendorf said his understanding is the Crown was agreeing there were a number of trial issues that would have far from secured a guilty verdict and Eckland decided to plead guilty, irrespective of the legalities.

“He knows deep within his heart” that he did something very real that stained an otherwise unblemished, if not exemplary, career as a police officer, Benkendorf said.

It also helped him set a better example for his children, who suffer bullying at school as a result of his actions.

Crown counsel Jessica Saris told the court that the incident started April 2018 when Eckland attended a domestic assault complaint in Lake Country.

In the weeks that followed he would check in on the victim, offered updates about his investigation and discuss other issues.

It was August or September of 2018 when the interactions took a turn, and the two started exchanging sexually explicit messages and photos. There are six recorded exchanges, though Saris said there may have been some that were erased.

They stopped in November 2019. Eckland told his supervisor of what had transpired and shortly thereafter he was contacted by a Global News reporter who had caught wind of the interaction and asked him for comment. He then was prompted to tell top police officers at the detachment.

On Dec.10, 2019, the reporter contacted the Kelowna RCMP, advising them that she was working on a story on an inappropriate relationship between one of their officers and the victim of an assault he was investigating.

“The reporter said that she had copies of sexual and graphic text messages that Const. Eckland sent from his personal cell phone,” Saris said.

In some of the messages, Eckland said that he felt badly about the relationship they’d forged.

Eckland pleaded guilty to attempting to obstruct justice, which he was charged with in March 2022.

In December of 2019, an internal RCMP investigation into this matter got underway. That ended with Eckland's resignation.

Sentencing will happen at a later date.