“As I was taking pictures, I was hit with a very significant impact on my right side,” Dorian Barton said Monday at the opening of the assault trial of Toronto police Const. Glenn Weddell — the first criminal trial of any officer charged in controversial policing of the 2010 Toronto G20 summit.
Weddell has pleaded not guilty to assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
“I was knocked to the ground and I was stunned,” Barton told prosecutor Philip Perlmutter. He thought he was struck by a police riot shield because it made a loud thud, he said.
He then felt five or more hits to his body, he said.
Barton, 32, an usher and part-time editor, said he had come with a friend out of curiosity to see the demonstration at around 4 p.m. on June 26, 2010.
The area was ringed with police in riot gear, but the civilians were relaxed, he said.
He said he heard no police orders to disperse.
“What would you have done if you heard such an announcement?” Perlmutter asked.
“I would have left immediately,” he replied.
Barton said he did not see the people who were hitting him, nor what they were using. He was dragged off to a police wagon, first by one arm, then the other and, finally, by all four limbs, he testified.
“I was in quite a bit of pain,” he told Ontario Superior Court Justice M. Gregory Ellies at the judge-alone trial.
Barton was taken to a police detention centre on Eastern Ave. and charged with obstructing a police officer and taking part in an unlawful demonstration, he said. Those charges were dropped in August 2010.
He suffered a broken shoulder, a black eye, bruises, sprains, cuts and scratches, he testified. He said his shoulder’s range of motion is now only 75 to 80 per cent.
Barton testified he was contacted by a man called Andrew Wallace in December 2010. Wallace showed him photos he had taken of the incident and purported to identify a police officer who assaulted him.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Peter Brauti, Barton agreed he never saw a shield or baton hitting him and that he might have been injured by falling to the ground with his arm extended straight.
“What I remember is still very fuzzy,” he said.
Referring to videos that capture part of the event, Brauti suggested they don’t show Barton being kicked or hit by a baton.
Barton agreed.
Brauti asked Barton if he had launched a $250,000 civil suit in the case. Barton agreed, saying it has been settled.
Wallace, who works at Toronto General Hospital, testified he saw an officer, whom he identified as Weddell, charge out of a police line and attack Barton. “He hit him with his shield and he fell down and he hit him with his baton,” he said.
Wallace said the unprovoked attack angered him. “I wanted evidence to implicate this officer,” he told prosecutor Peter Scrutton.
After Wallace read about Barton’s case in the Toronto Star, he tracked him down and gave him the pictures, he said.
Under cross-examination by Brauti, Wallace admitted that, of the many photos he took that day, he can’t explain why he doesn’t have one of Weddell attacking Barton.
Brauti told the judge that Weddell takes the position that Barton stumbled and the only contact the officer had with him is helping him up from the ground and directing him northbound.
Weddell’s trial was a long time coming.
The Special Investigations Unit, the provincial police watchdog, launched an investigation the day after the incident, but wound up shutting down and reopening the case twice, each time citing lack of evidence.
In January 2011, the SIU received Wallace’s photographs.
Barton’s investigation was reopened on May 26, 2011. The following month, Weddell was charged and suspended with pay.
The trial continues Tuesday.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Peter Small
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