OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – During Day 20 of the trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, a police witness testified her phone was “wiped” of all information when asked by the judge if she had copies of vital information of conversations between her and protesters. This is the second police officer in less than a week who has testified their phone was suddenly “wiped” of all data.

Nicole Bach of the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) Police Liaison Team (PLT) told Justice Heather Perkins-McVey last Thursday that “my phone was wiped due to upgrade system.”

Bach was testifying before the court regarding a conversation she had with Barber relating to the location in Ottawa during the protests.

Defense counsel Diane Magas noted to the court how certain messages in chat groups came from her client’s phone and not from Bach’s.

Perkins-McVey asked Bach if she had “copies” of the messages and she replied she did not after her phone had been “wiped.”

Magas asked Bach, “Your cellphone was wiped clean?” She replied, “Not sure wiped clean is the terminology,” adding it was an “upgrade.”

OPS liaison team officer Isabelle Cyr testified last week that her contacts were “wiped” clean from her phone between January 27 and February 9, 2022, which was when the main protests took place.

She noted to the court, however, that she had some text message exchanges with Freedom Convoy organizer Chris Barber printed out before her information was “wiped.”

Bach says she took no steps to preserve her data before ‘wipe’

Magas also asked Bach if she would agree that the “evidence in your phone would be required,” and what kind of steps she took to make sure she preserved it.

Bach replied that she made no effort to preserve the information, only saying, “It was suggested I do the upgrade.”

Magas then pressed Bach by asking her if she had “any direction to save the phone information?”

“I tried, but the steps didn’t work for me, so I just did the upgrade,” Bach said in reply.

Magas asked Bach if she reached out to IT, to which she said, “I did that again and I didn’t get the backup, so I did the upgrade.”

Bach was asked if she had any other contact with protesters besides Barber.

She replied “yes” but said that information was “all gone.”

Magas noted to the court that it is her hope they can obtain a copy of the IT email that will confirm the dates Bach said she lost her phone information.

During testimony, Bach noted that she did sometimes use her personal phone, so any communications on there would be saved.

Magas asked Bach, “So you knew before the trial the PLT logs and your signal chats from your personal phone did not match?”

“Correct,” Bach said in response.

On Thursday in court, Perkins-McVey asked the witness to “confirm on her phone that these are the same screenshots in her records,” as noted by The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs.

Perkins-McVey further asked “Bach if her phone records have been produced in disclosure. Bach states that these logs have not been produced — her phone, apparently, was also ‘wiped,’” the TDF said.

The TDF noted that Bach said “she never ‘text-messaged’ police and that all internal PLT communication was conducted via the Signal chat.”

“Bach also admitted that she had access to the Signal chats on her personal phone (which remained intact) prior to and throughout the trial. Of note, the Signal chats were not provided to defence until three weeks into the trial. The reason these messages were not produced until this late stage remains unclear,” the TDF pointed out.

The TDF also noted that Bach further “admitted” that she was “aware of a number of discrepancies between the PLT log – which was another internal PLT communication medium – and the Signal chat.”

“She added that she did not become aware of the discrepancies between these two documents until the beginning of the trial – September 2023,” noted the TDF.

“When asked why she didn’t investigate these documents for discrepancies earlier, she stated that she ‘was assured’ that there were ‘no discrepancies’ between them. She admitted that she does not remember who ‘assured’ her that there were no discrepancies.”

Last week on Day 19 of the trial saw Cyr testify about how law enforcement seemed to work well with the protesters in the days leading up to the protests, admitting truckers intended to engage in a “peaceful” protest.

The trial of Lich and Barber resumed on October 11 after a hiatus of nearly three weeks, seeing the judge agree to allow the government to call eight more witnesses despite strong objections by the defense.

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government enacted the Emergencies Act in mid-February.

Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.

After the protesters were cleared out, which was done through the freezing of bank accounts of those involved without a court order as well as the physical removal and arrest of demonstrators, Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.

The trial will resume this week on Thursday and Friday.