A man who stole flowers from a Chinatown grocery store told a Toronto court Wednesday he was afraid for his life when the store owner and two employees grabbed him and threw him into the back of a van.
Anthony Bennett, who has pleaded guilty to stealing $60 worth of flowers from the Lucky Moose Food Mart in Chinatown last May, said the men could have simply walked him back to the store.
Bennett testified in the trial of a Toronto shopkeeper and two co-workers who were charged after detaining him for police.
Store owner David Chen and two others were charged with forcible confinement and assault after making what they thought was a citizen's arrest, when Bennett returned to the shop an hour after stealing the plants.
Canada's laws on citizen's arrests state that you can only detain someone caught committing a crime.
In court, Bennett admitted to a being "a career thief and a former drug addict," reported CTV Toronto's Michelle Dube. Bennett also acknowledged that he returned to the Lucky Moose with the intention of stealing more flowers, an admission that pleased defence lawyer Peter Lindsay.
"Getting him to admit he came back to steal is an important admission because that puts him in the act of committing a crime at the time of the chase and at the time of the detention," Lindsay told reporters outside Old City Hall court.
Two witnesses appeared at the trial Wednesday morning and testified to seeing a scuffle, which they said involved three men restraining a man and putting him in the back of a van.
The witnesses could not identify Chen and his co-workers as being involved the incident.
The trial was supposed to start Monday, but was delayed until the court could provide a Mandarin interpreter.
According to Dube, the courtroom was packed for day one of the trial, which has received a lot of attention from the public.
"It centres around a man who some have said should not even be on trial in the first place," she said.
Outside the courthouse, Chen supporter Chi-Kun Shi said the current law "is such that it makes criminals feel safe and citizens feel fearful."
Mayoral candidate Rocci Rossi said he felt the trial was unwarranted, describing Chen as an average man who was trying to help police.
"David Chen is not a criminal. He is a small-business owner and an ordinary Torontonian," Rossi said in a statement released on Wednesday. "He attempted to assist the police in the capture of an actual criminal who had already stolen from him and returned to do so again. Mr. Chen did what any of us would have done."
Crown attorney Eugene McDermott said the case is not about whether shopkeepers have the right to protect their property.
"That's a given," McDermott said outside court. "(The case has) always been about whether people can be seized off the road, grabbed, tied up and thrown in the back of a van."
The trial continues Thursday and is expected to last for at least three more days.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Michelle Dube and files from The Canadian Press
