N.B. Mountie testifies in his own defence during aggravated assault trial
CBC
A New Brunswick Mountie testified he punched a woman in the face twice, but only because she had punched him while he tried to arrest her.
RCMP Cpl. Andrew Whiteway took to the witness box Thursday to testify in the New Brunswick Court of King’s Bench as part of his trial for aggravated assault.
“So when I have a hold of her with my left hand, and I go to grab my handcuffs ... Ms. Gillis uses her right arm and struck me once with a closed fist somewhere in my lower mouth, lip area," Whiteway told the court in Woodstock.
“I let go of that arm and used my right arm, and I struck Ms. Gillis twice in her face.”
Whiteway is accused of committing aggravated assault against Christina Gillis stemming from an incident that led to her arrest near Woodstock on June 13, 2024.
Whiteway said he and three other Mounties were outside in an area near Gillis's home in Richmond Corner while responding to a call about an assault.
Gillis became confrontational with another Mountie, Whiteway said, and struck his arm down as he tried to create distance between the two.
Whiteway said that when he told Gillis she was under arrest, she took a defensive stance and began walking backwards.
Whiteway said he pushed Gillis, who then fell to the ground.
When he tried putting handcuffs on her wrists, he said, Gillis punched him in the mouth, prompting him to punch her twice in the face in an attempt to get her to comply.
"I said, 'Now you're under arrest for assaulting a police officer.'"
Whiteway was the last witness to testify as part of his trial, which heard testimony from Gillis, her husband, other Mounties and an expert in the use of force by police officers.
Earlier Thursday, a Mountie qualified as an expert in police use of force testified that his co-worker used reasonable force when he brought Gillis to the ground and punched her during the arrest.
RCMP Cpl. Philip Scribner testified he wanted to make it clear he was not testifying in the capacity of an RCMP member but as a police use-of-force expert at the request of defence lawyer TJ Burke.
When David St-Pierre saw the snow outside his window in Brossard, Que., south of Montreal, he decided to chance the metropolitan region's shiny light-rail transit system once more.
A Calgary lawyer who falsified court documents and repeatedly lied to a client, causing the man to miss out on parenting time with his youngest child, pleaded guilty to forgery on Thursday.
The Crown has stayed an assault charge against Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Jeremy Tunraluk.
Alberta’s minister of hospitals says a province-wide strategy has begun to ease the strain on the acute care system as frontline doctors continue to declare that provincial hospitals are dangerously overcrowded.
As snow squalls continue to blanket southwestern Ontario, school boards in the London region announced the closure of all schools Thursday morning, and police are reporting closures and collisions across the area roads.
A Canadian citizen has died in Iran “at the hands of the Iranian authorities,” according to Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand.
On Boxing Day, Victoria Lethbridge and her partner took their dog and baby out for a morning walk in brand new snowshoes around the corner from their home in Hickman’s Harbour.
When a U.S. company made its data centre pitch to some concerned Saint John residents late last year, he called the city an untapped “gold mine” for artificial intelligence projects.
Over the past seven years, when outgoing premier François Legault's government tabled a contentious bill, he would often justify it by saying it represented the will of the vast majority of Quebecers.
The union representing Manitoba's nurses is concerned a reduction in the number of nursing agencies the province works with could exacerbate staffing shortages during the transition period.
Developers convinced a Saskatoon city council committee Wednesday to give some more thought to proposed changes to a longstanding incentive to encourage infill.
A Regina real estate agent has been sanctioned by the Saskatchewan Real Estate Commission after he arranged to pay someone to tamper with other businesses' Google Business profiles.
Peter Bevan-Baker will not be running for re-election in the next provincial election, the Green Party of P.E.I. announced Thursday morning.