05/02/2020
2016 ONCJ 35 (CanLII) | CanLII
Twitter replied that Mr. Elliott had not broken any Twitter rules and referred her to her local police
department. She went in November.
In court, Ms. Reilly testified that the implication that he was physically present at the Cadillac Lounge,
which turned out to be inaccurate, gave her “the impression that he was stalking me though my tweets,
and could potentially be at any location I was, and I felt that that could eventually lead to a threat against
my personal safety. This appeared to escalate from name calling through to potential…this could be
physical harm to me.”
It was after the Cadillac Lounge incident that communication between Mr. Elliott and Ms. Reilly – or at
least tweets from either that use the other’s handle – stopped for two months.
During September Ms. Reilly took screen captures of any tweets that Mr. Elliott wrote in reference to her
or her tweets. She tweeted to him –“is this some kind of a threat?” but in her testimony she was not sure
what Mr. Elliott’s intent was and was not even sure of what her tweet was.
November 2012, just before the charge
At some point after September 13, Mr. Elliott had an exchange with someone with the handle @liverr,
who falsely told him that she was 13 when she was over 18. Briefly, tweets appeared about Mr. Elliott
propositioning a child. Then a flurry of tweets occurred on November 12.
Mr. Elliott tweeted the handle of Ms. Reilly and seven others, saying they “…can go fuck themselves.
#topoli#FascistFeminists”. He tweeted: “#FascistFeminist cuts/pastes my timeline out of order” and
quotes Ms. Reilly tweeting “first he propositions a 13 year old”, and added #TOpoli.
Ms. Reilly retweeted two tweets referring to Mr. Elliott and the 13-year-old – who was not 13. Then she
sent what she referred to as a unique tweet: “Hey @Greg_a_elliott - no one is trying to warp the twisted
shit you write. You do enough damage with your own tweets #creepy #lame”.
Finally, one conversation that Det. Bangild captured did not involve Ms. Reilly initially except that Mr.
Elliott included her handle, or as she put it, tagged her into the conversation. He tweeted:
“@larschristens10 @valerieburns613 Sorry Lars, @ladysnarksalot is a fat, angry pig who creates lies and
rumours about me”.
He then tweeted to Ms. Reilly: “@LadySnarksalot Snarky, seems @larschristens10 is under the
impression you have ‘facts about me’ that you should share w/ others. @valerieburns613”. Ms. Reilly
then retweeted four tweets, including on November 15, in which others forcefully criticized and insulted
Mr. Elliott.
Ms. Reilly went to the police on November 21, after Ms. Guthrie did. She went after she saw the police
press release that followed Ms. Guthrie’s complaint, which she later retweeted to others. To that point Ms.
Reilly had been keeping an eye on her tweets and his account. She did not see anything that made her
think that any implied threat was going to escalate or get worse, she testified.
As for harassment, she did not feel that Mr. Elliott was picking on her per se, but did not appreciate
randomly being dragged into Twitter fights for no reason. She did not like him making derogatory remarks
about her with #TOpoli, so that everyone else reading #TOpoli could see them.
ANALYSIS
Has the Crown Proven Every Element of the Offence?
As set out earlier, the Crown must prove five elements of the offence in relation to each charge: repeated
communication, that the complainant was harassed, that Mr. Elliott knew she was harassed, that the
communication caused her to be fearful for her safety, and that the fear was reasonable in all the
circumstances. The prosecution must prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt.
While it may be convenient to list the elements separately, they intertwine and interact in section 264 and
the charge. The repeated communication explicitly must cause the fear, and implicitly must be the reason
that the person is harassed, by either the nature or the frequency of the communication.
The defendant’s knowledge that the person is harassed is also related to the communication. As Justice
Proulx stated in R. v. Lamontagne, supra, one can hardly be expected to know about harassment that
they have not caused (“dont il n’est pas responsable”). And Justice Berger said in Sillipp,
That which is prohibited is a person engaging in subsection (2) conduct with knowledge
(recklessness or wilful blindness) that such conduct is causing the complainant to be harassed.
file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/R v Gregory Allan Elliott.htm
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