Generally speaking, a witness is called in a trial when they actually saw a defendant committing a particular crime. If Tamara Lich and Chris Barber had painted graffiti on a water tower, what’s going on in an Ottawa courtroom right now is more like a parade of testimony from people who saw the graffiti and were upset by it but did not see who actually painted it.

One would expect that if a charge of mischief was going to stick, the trial should have been over and done with by now. Who knew that “overwhelming” someone is now a crime…

Vivian Leir, an employee at St. Andrew’s Presybyterian Church near the intersection of Wellington and Kent streets, told court she was “overwhelmed with trucks parked all around our church”

She testified demonstrators urinated and defecated on church property, dressed up a statue of Jesus and left “garbage everywhere.”

During her cross-examination, defence lawyers clarified she never saw anyone defecating on the property herself, but that the church’s groundskeeper told her about locating human feces. They also showed video recorded during the convoy showing the street adjacent to the church being relatively quiet, with hardly any horns heard in the background.