On June 4, Scott Joseph Taylor was preparing to spend the day at a local firing range with friends when he popped into his house to grab a cup of coffee and heard a loud banging on the door.
The 34-year-old Portage la Prairie man opened his door to find four RCMP vehicles parked outside his house as officers “barged in” and immediately arrested him for obtaining the sexual services of a child and unsafe storage of firearms.
“They threw me in the truck, took my computer monitor, my phone, all my firearms,” Taylor said Tuesday.
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Scott Joseph Taylor was attacked on the street after police wrongly identified him as a suspect in a child sex ring.
He was among seven people arrested and charged after a Long Plain First Nation woman was accused of befriending and luring teens into a room where they were coerced into performing sex acts in Portage between February and June.
Taylor spent two days in jail before he was released on bail and had no idea why he was arrested.
“I was completely innocent, there was no evidence,” he said. “They completely got the wrong guy.”
RCMP admitted as much last Friday, issuing a media release confirming Taylor “was not involved in this occurrence” and that all charges had been stayed against him.
By then, Taylor had been branded a pedophile. Within hours of being charged, he was receiving death threats over social media. He was fired from his job as a truck driver. The front of his house was spray-painted with the words “certified pedo.”
“I had to go into hiding,” he said.
Then on Sunday, two days after police officially cleared him of any wrongdoing, Taylor was attacked on the street.
“I was walking down the street and a guy I know saw me and beat the s—t out of me.”–Scott Taylor
“I was walking down the street and a guy I know saw me and beat the s—t out of me,” he said. “I had a couple friends help me so he didn’t kill me, thankfully.”
Taylor said his life will never be the same.
“Right now, I feel like my life is ruined,” he said. “When you are labelled a pedophile on national television and everybody in the community comes to those conclusions…. It has absolutely destroyed me…. I’m going to have to go get some counselling for this.”
All available information at the time supported Taylor’s charges, RCMP said Tuesday in an email to the Free Press.
“In this instance, investigators followed all appropriate investigative steps,” a spokesperson wrote.
“As the investigation progressed, investigators determined one of the accused was not involved. Immediate steps were taken to have charges stayed, and to inform the public and the media.”
“When you are labelled a pedophile on national television and everybody in the community comes to those conclusions…. It has absolutely destroyed me…”–Scott Taylor
Taylor, who doesn’t know any of the accused people arrested, said he had expected an apology from police, but didn’t get one.
He said he is considering a lawsuit.
“I think they should have done their investigation a lot better,” he said. “They should have done their job and got the guy that did this.”
Matt Gould, Taylor’s lawyer, said police disclosure he reviewed raised “serious red flags” with respect to the evidence identifying his client as a suspect.
“My impression was it would take very little effort to check out what was provided to them — where he worked, what he looked like — and there was an identification of someone who was not Scott Taylor,” Gould said.
Gould said he sent investigators a recent picture of Taylor and asked if the witnesses in the case could identify him as the suspect. He said police did not confirm if the witnesses had identified his client, but stayed the charges against him a short time later.
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The front of Scott Taylor’s house was spray-painted after his arrest.
“The reaction from the community was extreme, but is to be expected,” Gould said. “Police have to appreciate how devastating an allegation like this can be. The fact that it is predictable a community will have such a strong reaction and that the impact on any accused person will be that strong puts that much more responsibility on the police.
“The public should have confidence that the appropriate steps have been taken so that when someone is arrested with sex offences against children that it would be done with the appropriate amount of investigation and corroborative efforts.”
dean.pritchard@freeprress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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