A Saskatoon police officer charged with attempting to obstruct justice after a victim’s statement in a domestic violence case went missing was in court Tuesday.

Const. Steven Nelson’s trial began in Saskatoon provincial court.

Nelson was charged following an internal investigation and provincial justice review into a missing victim’s statement from an August 2012 domestic violence case that he was investigating.

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 Tuesday that, in August 2012, Nelson took a statement from a woman who claimed she was assaulted by her partner.

The woman testified in court Tuesday 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 and, in a recorded phone call between Nelson and another officer that was played in court, the two discuss the statement and decide to rip it up. Court heard the officer gave the paper to Nelson and it disappeared.

The statement came up again 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.

Nelson’s defence lawyer argued Tuesday that it’s not difficult for documents to get lost at the police department. Nelson never denied the statement existed, according to the defence lawyer.

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.