December 5, 2009
Dana Chatwell says she had no choice but to stay.
The Caledonia woman whose family home fell into the middle of a nasty, prolonged conflict over the native occupation of a disputed development site, testified Friday that if she left the house she was sure it would be occupied or burned down.
Instead, she, her husband and their son have remained through years of threats, harassment, property damage, blockades and rumours of worse to come, all the while feeling as if the Ontario Provincial Police were watching but not stepping in to protect them.
Chatwell, 46, and her husband, David Brown, 42, and son, Dax Chatwell, 18, are suing the Ontario government and the OPP for $5 million, plus $2 million in punitive and aggravated damages.
The family, whose home backs onto the 28-hectare former Douglas Creek Estates site occupied by Six Nations protesters in February 2006, say police adopted a hands-off policy toward a native land claim and abandoned the plaintiffs to chaos and lawlessness.
Chatwell testified at her civil trial that the problems continue. Recently she has experienced a tire fire burning just beyond her back yard, a racial sign appearing in the middle of the night and the mayor telling her about a gun incident.
"Every day I wake up and I still fear for my life," she testified.
Under cross-examination from the province's lawyer David Feliciant, she detailed a heavy toll on her marriage, her business, her sobriety, her property value and her peace of mind, laying the blame over and over again on the problems at Douglas Creek Estates and what she saw as unwillingness by the police to intervene.
Her family had tried unsuccessfully to sell their home on Argyle Street, just up the hill from the entrance to the subdivision.
The trial has been adjourned until Jan. 4, and is expected to continue through the entire month.