Taking the stand at his own trial on Tuesday, off-duty Toronto police officer Michael Theriault admitted he injured Whitby man Dafonte Miller but said he did so with punches thrown in self-defence.Speaking to a full Oshawa courtroom Tuesday morning, Theriault, 27, was adamant that neither he nor his brother, Christian Theriault, struck Miller with a weapon. Rather, the officer testified, it was Miller who was armed with a metal pipe that was found at the scene and entered into evidence at the Theriault brothers’ ongoing criminal trial. “Did you see anyone using the pipe that morning?” asked Michael Lacy, Michael Theriault’s lawyer, within a minute of his client taking the stand, saying he wanted to jump to the heart of the matter. “Yes ... Mr. Miller,” Michael Theriault said, a statement that prompted laughter from the public gallery and a warning from Ontario Superior Court Justice Joseph Di Luca that such outbursts wouldn’t be tolerated. Theriault and his younger brother are jointly charged with aggravated assault and separately charged with attempt to obstruct justice in the Dec. 28, 2016, beating that injured Miller, then 19, resulting in the loss of his left eye.Both have pleaded not guilty in the judge-alone trial.In testimony last week, Miller told the court he was beaten by the Theriaults after they asked him and two friends what they were doing in the residential neighbourhood near the Theriault family home. When Miller and his friends walked away, he said, the brothers chased him down Whitby’s Erickson Drive.Miller alleges both brothers repeatedly punched him and that Michael Theriault repeatedly struck him with a pipe, causing his eye injury. On the stand, Theriault denied nearly all aspects of Miller’s account, admitting only that he’d repeatedly punched Miller “as hard as I could” in an attempt to disarm him and keep him from harming himself and his brother.Acknowledging he caus ...
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