Today In Court – Wednesday April 13, 2016

“No, I’m not delusional, and no, I don’t put on blinders!”

The Crown ended their cross-examination of David Stephan today. This was another long day for David, making two straight days of standing in the witness box. He will continue standing tomorrow, when Defense counsel takes time to redirect on a few new areas that came out of the Crown’s cross-exam questioning. Collet is also likely to be in the box tomorrow, as she begins her testimony.

The Crown spent the entire day trying to peg David as a guy so blinded by powerful ideological and monetary self-interests, that he could not see his own son’s needs. Try as he did, the Prosecutor could not pound this loving father into their farcical hole. “No, I’m not delusional, and no, I don’t put on blinders”, said David.

David was accused of disdain for medical doctors, and for the modern medical system. The Crown relied on an earlier statement by David that he had blown out both of his knees, and witnessed the powerful restorative effect of MSM and chondroitin. He responded with the facts – that he had surgery to correct the one knee, and while on a lengthy waiting list for surgery on his other knee, he tried the MSM remedy. His knee recovered so fully that when the time for surgery arrived, he no longer required the surgical intervention.

Another example was of when Collet had taken their son Ezra to the Naturopath for a checkup. The ND referred her to a medical doctor to have an ear issue looked at. Both David and Collet took Ezra to a clinic where a medical doctor assessed Ezra with no concerns. This will become evidence in the trial next week when the medical file of the doctor visit, as referred by the Naturopath, is entered through a witness from the clinic.

David was emphatic in his stated belief, that modern medical advances are superior when it comes to infectious disease and emergent care, and that modern natural and nutritional advances are superior for chronic diseases, and in assisting the body to recover and thrive optimally.

David was also accused of putting monetary interests ahead of his son’s health: To prove to the world that the products he promotes through his position with Truehope are miracle cures for all disease. Even the jury grimaced over the Prosecutor’s ugly smear. David denied the Crowns characterization that he tells all his potential customers as the Crown suggested: “Why, I take the stuff myself”; suggesting David to be as the Chevy car salesman who drives a Chevy, and claims “Chevy’s to be the best there is”. David humbly and believably asserted that he only volunteers his own use of these products when asked.

Many other attempts were made to make David out to be a self-assigned physician or expert in health matters. He was even accused of using herbal remedies for viral infections because of his own theoretical assertions that viruses can’t be treated with antibiotics. To which, David shared that what he had learned about viruses came from a government pamphlet that was distributed during a West Nile scare.

It has become ever so clear that while David and Collet are the ones on trial, the intended accused are Naturopaths, supplements and natural health products. Had these parents not been so versed and willing to live the natural path, their tragic story would have been a local death announcement, with sympathies to the family. Instead, their sad loss and the accompanied accusations have become both a weapon against natural health, and a cover-up of the government’s own liabilities in failing to equip for airways, the ambulance that by law must be called when your child stops breathing.