On Friday, January 22, 2016, the Ontario Court of Justice
released reasons in
R. v. Elliott, 2016 ONCJ 35. The case involved allegations
that the accused engaged in criminal harassment of two women by
repeatedly communicating with them over Twitter. The case is
interesting in a number of respects, not least of which was the
court's struggle with how to address evidentiary challenges
with social media.
A Little Background
The case stemmed from a dispute that took place over Twitter
between the accused and, among others, the two complainants. The
accused met one of the complainants once, but never met the other.
An analysis of all of the tweets that were involved goes beyond the
scope of this post. Suffice it to say that the exchanges were not
always a model of civil discourse – on anyone's part.
