05/02/2020 2016 ONCJ 35 (CanLII) | CanLII Ms. Guthrie said that she didn’t want that either but wanted his hatred to “impact on his real-life experience.” But Mr. Elliott did not let it go. He asked, in succinct Twitter language, what if Mr. Spurr killed himself because of the orchestrated attack by the women in the discussion? Some said that would be Mr. Spurr’s own agency; one said that he was far too pleased with himself to be a suicide risk. It was then that Ms. Guthrie told Mr. Elliott that she had had enough of him, and blocked him. However heated, it was a discussion. The Crown does not characterize it as harassment and neither does Ms. Guthrie, who agreed that as of July 28 she was not afraid of Mr. Elliott. She did testify that the harassment was cumulative and that later these events entered into the cumulative effect. Crown counsel relies in part on the volume of Mr. Elliott’s tweets, citing the 23 tweets between July 15 and August 15 to demonstrate repeated communication and harassment. But these dates appear to me to be arbitrary, as does the starting point of August 1 in the information. Nothing particular happened on August 1, and it appears to be a cautious starting point that the police used. Up to that date, Ms. Guthrie had blocked Mr. Elliott but she did not fear him. On July 15 tweets were exchanged as Mr. Elliott continued to argue with Ms. Guthrie’s friends, including @popeshakey. A man came into the exchange reporting that Mr. Elliott had stalked him on Twitter and attacked everything he tweeted, and Mr. Elliott replied that the accusation was nonsense. A woman joined in, and Mr. Elliott was frankly sexist and sexually offensive with her. The tweets continued to be about Bendilin Spurr. Mr. Elliott tweeted, perhaps sarcastically: “If you’re done with him on twitter…Perhaps a visit? I’m thinking a road trip maybe.” Another tweeter to Mr. Elliott, Mr. Spurr and Ms. Guthrie as well as @rachelmack, reasonably suggested: “I’d go down for a public, moderated debate. Think he’d participate?” Ms. Guthrie then tweeted, without a hint of disdain, rancour or sarcasm that I can determine, to the person who started the conversation and Mr. Elliott: “@CarolineG82@greg_a_elliott@rachelmack Working on another idea. This problem is much bigger than Bendilin, who I don’t think will get it.” So Ms. Guthrie tweeted to Mr. Elliott eight days after she blocked his tweets. She did dislike Mr. Elliott, as made clear on July 28 when she attended a function in her honour, “Steph Guthrie Appreciation Day”. At the event, she agreed, it is possible that she said that she was planning to “teach Mr. Elliott a lesson.” I find that Ms. Guthrie was an honest witness. She felt harassed and went to the police and put herself in their hands. She did not give them all the information about her interactions with Mr. Elliott, but as she said, she was not asked to. I do not accept Mr. Elliott’s submission that she lied to this Court. Whether or not it could have been proven that she said those words at Steph Guthrie Appreciation Day, she admitted that she may have said them. I find as a fact that she did, and that that is an important fact in understanding what happened. Her admission that she was not afraid of Mr. Elliott until the end of July further enhances her credibility, as does her testimony mentioned earlier that she was probably looking back at April through the lens of what occurred later. She saw the issues, followed defence counsel’s thoughts and questions, and may have been vague at points – but in the end respected her affirmation. Before reaching the period covered by the information, I will deal with an event related to the function honouring Ms. Guthrie. On July 28, Mr. Elliott used the #shesrightfolks, that others, not Ms. Guthrie, had created for that event. She apparently saw six tweets that Mr. Elliott sent using the hashtag. She was not following Mr. Elliott and had blocked him, but her friends who were following him were telling her what he was up to. One of the July 28 tweets was a retweet by Mr. Elliott defending himself from a tweet by Ms. Guthrie that he was a concern troll of #feminism: “To him women’s liberation is exclusively sexual not really freeing.” Mr. Elliott tweeted: “Bullshit”. Since Ms. Guthrie had sent the tweet and included the hashtag #feminism plus the accusation that Mr. Elliott trolled on the hashtag, logic and her intelligence lead me to conclude that she knew he would read it: she was again, as on July 15, communicating with him while blocking him. As she testified in relation to Mr. Elliott but in a different scenario, using hashtags of those who have blocked you is a “great way” to cause them to see your tweets. Thus I conclude she was communicating with, commenting on and also attacking Mr. Elliott while claiming to have had it with him on July 7. The “great way” for him to communicate with someone who had blocked him – by using a hashtag that the blocker uses or that he knew the blocker checked – was part of Ms. Guthrie’s theory of how Mr. Elliott was communicating with her and harassing her using hashtags. file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/R v Gregory Allan Elliott.htm 20/43