The trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed Monday morning, with the court kicking off the day by dealing with disclosure and admissibility issues from the previous week and determining whether up to nine of the Crown’s witnesses will testify..The witness testimony in question comes from downtown Ottawa residents and business owners. .Lich and Barber are charged with mischief, intimidation, obstructing a police officer, counselling mischief not committed, counselling intimidation not committed, and counselling to obstruct a police officer during the Freedom Convoy protest. Barber is further charged with counselling to breach a court order not committed. .Lawrence Greenspon, counsel for Lich, argued against the Crown’s admission of nine “victim impact statements” in the middle of a trial. He referenced several prior legal decisions and argued that the Crown did not “tend to bring forth victim impact statements during the cases,” tweet reporter Matthew Horwood. .“[Greenspon] says those statements are always reserved for the sentencing portion of the trial” and are not ‘legally relevant’ to the case.”.“All nine have been called by the Crown in order to demonstrate — no pun intended — the impact of the demonstration on them, either as residents or business owners in the downtown area,” Greenspon said. .Greenspon argued it was “inappropriate for the Crown to attempt to introduce evidence for a defence that will not be erected,” The Democracy Fund (TDF) tweeted..The Crown said the nine witnesses are from different parts of the downtown area affected by the protest and are necessary to demonstrate the “scope, nature and consequences and the impacts of the Freedom convoy protest.” .It repeated its previous argument the protest was “anything but peaceful” and “strongly disagrees with this characterization and is entitled to lead evidence to refute..Justice Heather Perkins-McVey asked for a brief overview of the statements, so as not to have to read them in full before she makes a decision on whether they should be admitted. The judge said she wants to avoid mixing up the statements should the witnesses end up testifying in court. .She noted none of the nine witnesses had any direct dealings with Lich or Barber and called the testimony offered to be “observational.”.The Crown continued to assert Lich and Barber were in control of the protest, and Barber had urged people to honk after the court injunction had gone into effect. It said they want to “tie actions of the protesters on the ground with the words and actions of Barber and Lich” and “need evidence of what was happening on the ground” to do that. .“[It] wants to tender evidence of impact of counselling and how it led to intimidation,” the Crown said. .“Nothing that any of these witnesses would say would support the charges,” Greenspon responded, and introduced legal precedent to support his arguments. He argued the defence said “the Crown wants to present the evidence of impact to demonstrate how the counselling led to intimidation,” Horwood tweeted. “But the Crown needs to prove counselling, not intimidation.” .“Simply put, a description of the impact of intimidation is irrelevant, because what the Crown needs to prove is the counselling, not the intimidation,” Greenspon argued. “Intimidation was, according to the charge, not committed.”.Because it assumes Lich and Barber will argue this was a peaceful protest, the Crown wants to hear from “a sample of citizens and service providers who made firsthand observations” and it should be entitled to show evidence “to support the findings it is asking [the judge] to make.”.However, the defence “argues the evidence should not be introduced in anticipation of the defence arguing it was a peaceful protest,” tweeted Harwood.. .“That's not going to be our defence,” Greenspon said. .The judge said the Freedom Convoy cannot be characterized by a “singular” or “monolithic” event. .“Sounds like a lot of different people had different purposes for being there,” she said, noting some were there because they were upset with mandates, and others just to observe. .The judge also noted Russell Lucas, Ottawa Police Services officer, had testified he saw “no violence”, and she added that there were many groups protesting in Ottawa during the demonstration rather than just “one protest.” .She said the only instance of violence shown in the video footage was of a cop striking a protestor and gave the defence permission to present evidence later in the trial of police being “adversarial” and “using violence.”.“The value of some of [the Crown’s] evidence may be quite limited,” Perkins-McVey said. According to the judge, the charge of mischief is not affected by whether the protest “was peaceful or not,” but if the protest is found to have been peaceful, “the absence of an aggravating factor” would be found.
