A Saskatoon police officer charged with attempting to obstruct justice took the stand in court Wednesday.

Closing arguments were heard in Const. Steven Nelson’s trial at Saskatoon Provincial Court.

The 33-year-old was charged after a victim’s statement in a domestic violence case he was investigating went missing.

The victim’s statement disappeared sometime between August 2012, when Nelson was assigned to the case, and October 2013, when the issue was brought to light.

Court heard on day one of the trial Tuesday that Nelson took a statement from a woman who claimed she was assaulted by her partner.

The woman testified in court this week that she recanted the claim the following day. She called Nelson to tell him the assault did not happen, she said. She didn’t want to press charges and wanted to write a second statement. She said Nelson told her a second statement wasn’t necessary and that police were going ahead with charges.

The woman filed a second statement anyway, which came up in October 2013 at the trial for the woman’s domestic case. The prosecutor in that case told court Tuesday that the woman had mentioned the second statement when she took the stand in the earlier case. The Crown lawyer said she asked Nelson a number of times for the statement, but Nelson said he could not find it.

That case was halted and an investigation into Nelson began.

Court heard a recorded phone call Tuesday between Nelson and another officer. The conversation seemed to suggest the woman’s second statement was destroyed.

“She’s saying that now she wasn’t assaulted at all and that she fell numerous times,” the other officer said in the phone call.

“Yeah, that can get ripped up. I already talked to her on the phone tonight and told her I was not dropping the charges,” replied Nelson.

Nelson testified Wednesday he knows the phone call sounds bad, but said he had no reason to destroy the statement or influence the trial that followed. He said, in fact, he knew the repercussions would “ruin his life.”

Nelson said his memory of the statement even happening is foggy, but speculated on reasons it could have gone missing.

He told court the statement may have been misfiled, lost, or accidentally thrown away.

He may have even trashed the document with the intent to follow-up with the victim to explain that recanting a statement would put her in criminal jeopardy.

Nelson’s defence lawyer said, even if poor police work or human error contributed to a missing statement, that doesn’t mean Nelson intended to obstruct justice.

The Crown disagreed. The Crown argued the intent was clear as soon as Nelson said, in the recorded phone call, to rip up the statement.

The judge said Wednesday the case will be difficult to decide. He reserved his decision until June.

Nelson was suspended with pay from the Saskatoon police in October 2014 after the police announced he had been charged with attempting to obstruct justice.

He pleaded not guilty in November 2014.