Tiny House Warrior loses appeal of assault conviction six years after arrest at TRU

A pipeline protester lost her attempt to overturn an assault conviction seven years after an altercation with a security guard in Kamloops.

Nicole Manuel was among three people charged after a conflict with Thompson Rivers University security guards in 2018. They spread red paint at a campus building and tried forcing themselves into a meeting about the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Manuel appealed the most serious of her three convictions following a trial, but a BC Supreme Court judge dismissed her effort this month, more than six years after the conflict.

“Ms. Manuel has failed to establish any palpable and overriding error in the trial judge’s assessment of the evidence. All she has done on appeal is argue that the evidence could have been interpreted differently,” Justice Lindsay Lyster said in the March 21 decision.

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Manuel and two other members of Tiny House Warriors protest group were not invited to the December 2018 university meeting in which leaders of First Nations met behind closed doors with Trans Mountain personnel and government officials. They were blocked by security as they rushed the door.

Security guard Peter Haring was assaulted in the process as he blocked Manuel from getting through.

Manuel argued Haring consented to the use of force precisely because he blocked the door, much like a mutually-agreed fight, so it should not be considered an assault.

Lyster said he was simply doing his job by blocking Manuel, and a job that may require barring the public from a private event doesn’t imply consent for violence.

“Its acceptance would have far-reaching and perverse consequences,” Lyster said of Manuel’s argument.

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Manuel also said Haring’s testimony was inconsistent with at least one other witness, but Lyster found the judge who convicted her addressed it, still coming to the conclusion it was Manuel who knocked Haring’s glasses off and attempted to punch him in the groin.

With Manuel’s appeal dismissed, her convictions of assault, mischief and disturbing the peace stand.

Manuel was also among Tiny House Warrior protestors convicted last June following a series of confrontations at a pipeline worksite in 2021.