Especially the part of me moving around. It was terrible!!!! I'll write about my experience when I get back to Fredericton.
Charged blogger went unnoticed
Bruce Bartlett
Telegraph-Journal
As published on page B3 on November 3, 2006
SAINT JOHN - Charles LeBlanc hopes to make freedom of the press an issue at his trial for obstructing a police officer.
LeBlanc was arrested June 9 at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre when a group of masked protesters attempted to swarm the Atlantica Conference, which was dedicated to improving trade links between Atlantic Canada and the U.S. Northeast.
At the end of the first day of the trial Thursday, where 11 witnesses were called by the prosecution, there was still no direct evidence about LeBlanc's alleged obstruction of the police.
Several witnesses testified that more than 30 protesters, many with bandanas over their faces, stormed the area leading to the meeting hall, shouting slogans and waving signs. No one identified LeBlanc as a member of that group.
Two police officers hired by the organizers to provide security were pushed back against doors leading to the conference rooms before other officers arrived to move the protestors outside.
A one-time prolific letter writer to the Telegraph-Journal, LeBlanc now has a blog on the Internet where he posts his opinions. Although the defence has not yet presented its case, LeBlanc has said he was covering the conference as a journalist to gather material for his blog.
LeBlanc, who has attention deficit disorder, moved around the courtroom Thursday never sitting in the front row near his lawyer, the normal place for defendants.
Shortly after the trial started, Provincial court Judge William McCarroll noticed a man leaving and asked defence lawyer Harold Doherty if his client was still in the room, stating the trial could not continue in his absence, but it was not LeBlanc.
Anthony Bamford, Mayor Norm McFarlane's former executive assistant, was one of the witnesses. He said he was a delegate at the conference and was in the washroom off the hall used by the protesters to swarm the event when they came through.
He heard the yelling and screaming before arriving back at the entrance to see the protesters pushing up against police.
"I was pretty shocked, I can't remember what they were saying," he said.
He estimated it took less than a minute for police reinforcements to arrive and begin to gain control of the situation. Bamford, who knows many members of the Saint John media because of his former job, said he saw journalists arrive at the protest just as police began to push them back, but did not see LeBlanc.
The trial is scheduled to resume Nov. 20 at 9:30 a.m.
"There was someone lying on the ground and one police officer had his knee in his back, but I didn't know who it was," said Bamford.
He later learned that person was LeBlanc, who he knows from having dealt with him many times at the mayor's office.
Terri MacDonald Riedle, president of Revolution Strategies, the company hired to organize the conference, also testified.
Delegates at the three-day conference paid between $275 to $595 to attend and had to wear name tags to gain entry to the various sessions. Members of the media were not charged, but had to register to get a tag allowing them into the conference, she said.
Riedle, who knows LeBlanc, said he did not have a media pass and she did not see him that day.
She was in the registration areas off the hall when the protesters ran through shouting "down with Atlantica" and "you are being watched," she said.
The incident was very upsetting for the people working at the conference, but they quickly cleaned up after the officers got the protesters outside.
Prosecutor Catherine McNally still plans to call the two main police witnesses who arrested LeBlanc. The trial is scheduled to resume Nov. 20 at 9:30 a.m.
