Please forward
Court Update
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
To begin, and most importantly…I am so grateful to all those who came out from all over the Okanagan for these court proceedings over the past two days….and even to those couldn’t be there but sent me messages and love and support.
Thank you so much for all your kind support.
I am sorry that many of you had to wait all day for court to start, and worse, that many had to leave without seeing anything. This unfortunately is the nature of court in B.C. where they double and triple book courtrooms without your knowledge or consent.
The two charges of assault originate from a protest outside the Interior Health building in Kelowna, on Aug. 19, 2021. Yup, that long ago.
The Crown is alleging I assaulted two guards by pushing into them to enter the building, after I was allegedly banned from the building.
Court began on Wed. March 1, and it was nuts from the beginning. About 50 wonderful freedom supporters showed up. Sheriffs immediately set up a table outside of courtroom #9 to search people’s bags b/c the Chief Sheriff said more people arrived than last time. I objected and asked everyone not to go in. I initially refused to enter the courtroom and have my bags searched, and so the Judge issued an unendorsed warrant while was in the hallway. Crown Prosecutor Grabavac was apparently smiling to the gallery while he demanded Judge Cathie Heinrichs issue a warrant, which she so cheerfully did.
Sheriffs were going to use physically force on me to force me into court from my place in the hallway if I refused, so, being in this catch-22 situation, I went in and told the Judge we were not being searched, including myself.
Case was adjourned due to some in custody hearings unexpectedly put on the Judge’s docket ahead of mine, from 9:00 – 10:30 – 12:30, then 2:30. I had arguments with the Judge on the searches and she did not want to talk about them and claimed to have no power to stop them, which, being an inferior court, is likely correct. However, the Chief Sheriff did tell me that he would obey any judicial order to let us in.
I am going to now have to look at filing another challenge in the near future so that we don’t have to be searched to go into courtrooms without reasonable and probable grounds to believe someone is carrying something. In reality it is pretty stupid – I could be carrying a knife on me personally and they would never know because they are only searching bags. Me and my friend Gordy challenged these types of searches in Winnipeg and were successful.
After court started today the Judge trapped me – I could go into the hallway and get my stuff without bringing bags into the courtroom.
I told the Judge she could “talk to the hand” and that I was not going to participate in the court trial at all if I had to be searched. Now, any appeal would have lost as an appeal judge would have claimed I could have got my material out of the hallway and not needed bags. This however is wrong as I need to carry them to and into court in something from home…but I saw the trap coming, so went outside and got my stuff out of my bags. This only worked because I had people outside to watch my bags. I told people to try and avoid coming into court with bags today and not be searched and gratefully they for the most part they agreed. After lunch most people left their bags in their cars, and came in without being searched.
This was sad and took away valuably needed focus on the actual trial. This is so frustrating having to give up Constitutional rights and freedoms, to exercise other Constitutional rights and freedoms.
Crown put first cop on the stand today by video. I begin cross examination tomorrow (Thursday). Then Crown will put other cops and security guards on the stand right after – six in total. Not sure if we will get done tomorrow so there may be another date set.
A brief respite from the seriousness of the situation happened when some shagged looking woman with a face diaper on in the front row, decided to let a ripper go and grace the front row with her foul odours. This sounded like she was sitting on a wooden chair and the sound was heard virtually throughout the courtroom. I saw this woman on Thursday talking to the Crown, and have some suspicions that she was there in some capacity for the Crown or Gov’t.
CBC reporter Brady Strachan asked for an interview. I set the boundaries up front…no pejorative name calling, labels etc. If he was going to interview a lawyer, he had to do one from our side as well. I believe the interview went well, though once again, his online article repeated previous myths about me without mentioning successes.
Castanet BS reporter Nicholas Johansen continued with his ongoing attacks against me without my side of the story of course. I attacked him in court during a break today for his ongoing writing lies and misrepresentations. He claims I have a “long, unsuccessful history in the Canadian court system”, without considering or reporting on people I have kept out of jail, 50+ charges I have had thrown out including nine (9) s. 238 Income Tax Charges 30 months ago in Ottawa, a successful s. 11(b) Charter application, a successful Constitutional challenge to courthouse security searches, many of the wonderful comments from the judiciary, sentence reductions, and further ignores the ongoing attacks by the Crown to keep me out of the court system from exposing their criminal activity. It is much easier to quote a corrupt judge(s) and other prosecutors, than examine facts.
I will keep you posted tomorrow night what happens!
————————————–
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Things today began to look ominously repetitive of the previous day, when a supporter noticed at 9:15 a.m. that there were four other cases listed in my courtroom.
Fortunately, within 10 minutes they were transferred to other courtrooms.
Court began with myself beginning to cross examine a police officer who was barely involved in the incident. After being told by court staff that all I needed was a laptop and they had all the cables, I discovered that I needed MS Teams as this cop was down under vacationing at our expense.
Needless to say, ½ hour later, we got the video working but not the audio. After trying to cross examine without audio, I finished with the agreement that we would have him appear on another day when he returned, as we would not be finished today in any event. My cross examination took up virtually the entire morning in large part because of these digital issues.
Finally, the Crown brings on its first real witness, Taj Smith, a Palladin security guard who was one of three guards blocking me from entering the IH building on Aug. 19. I caught Mr. Smith wearing an ear piece behind his neck, which he said he forgot to take off this morning. It was not directly in his ear (getting messages as we caught a Federal witness doing last year with headphones), and he said he could not get messages from it. On we went.
I expressed some reservations to the Judge about having to give up my defences so early, but it appeared I had no choice. The Crown was objecting to every hearsay question I tried to get in. Other objections were on relevance, which I believe time will confirm that these questions were relevant to my defence.
The Crown had a silent interior IH video they put as an exhibit. Questions then flew around about what was happening in the video, which was clear, but the people were so far away it was difficult to see clearly unless it was directly on your computer screen.
I then put our first video into evidence. I began to run this video showing Mr. Smith and the other two guards, and what was happening. Mr. Smith confirmed that I was not violent, said no threatening words or made any such gestures, etc.
Then we get to the part where I introduced the video taken by Leo, one of our group volunteers. Despite the threats of initial objections, the Crown conceded to it being an exhibit.
This incredible video shows the truth, it was actually the guards who assaulted me. It was so visibly obvious that gasps from the gallery were immediately heard throughout the courtroom, who witnessed this video for the first time, even from 30 feet or more away.
Taj Smith tried to deny the video evidence, but my analysis of this video, second by second, clearly showed otherwise. When he continued to insist otherwise, I asked if he wished to take a break and go and obtain a quality pair of glasses to assist his vision (remember, he was only 5-7 feet from the screen).
The Crown jumped up quicker than an update by Microsoft needs to be patched, yelling I was berating the witness etc. to which the Judge of course agreed. But I did not back down and repeated that clearly, he couldn’t see the video because it was clear they assaulted me, or was deliberately lying.
This witness had to back down and/or agree with me on several other points of importance as well.
Smith further confirmed that if not for the order allegedly banning me from entering the building, I had a right of entry and he could not stop me, despite being authorized to use force under provincial legislation.
Shortly after we were done with Smith, the Crown’s second witness Jason Davis sat his lying butt on the witness stand. He began by repeating what the previous witness had stated when we ran out of time.
A date has been set next week for myself and the Crown to obtain another 2-3 days of trial time. If I were to lose, then my Constitutional Challenge that the RCMP have no jurisdiction in B.C. would be heard, including a further disclosure application, subpoenas and another minimal 3-4 days of trial time. This could conceivably take almost two weeks of trial time for something which, even if proven, is nothing more than brushing against someone on the bus, as everyone in the courtroom discovered for the first time today.
People are going to be really mad when they see how much money is being spent on this case and the politics behind it.
Examinations and cross examinations on this witness, the Interior Health witness, and three police officers, is going to be interesting for sure.
Thank you to everyone for your kind support in this waste of time, money and resource trial.
The best is yet to come!
I will advise next week of the further dates to be set.
In freedom
David
