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The request related to emails, reports, memos, text messages and other records from a two-week period around when Norman, who is facing one count of breach of trust, was suspended as the military’s second-in-command.

The service member, who testified that he doesn’t know Norman and only came forward because it seemed the right thing to do, said his commander smiled as he told him to tell the requester that there were no records.

“He gives me a smile and says … ‘Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We made sure we never used his name. Send back nil return,”‘ the service member testified, later adding: “He seemed proud to provide that response.”

Under cross-examination, the service member said his commander left a few months later for medical reasons. Pressed by the Crown, the member said without offering details that he had noticed his commander “was becoming a bit mentally unstable.”

The service member also said that he had filed a formal complaint on Tuesday morning, but had only informally raised the issue with other senior officers in the intervening year because he wasn’t sure who he could trust.

Prior to cross-examination, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey described the member’s testimony as “very disturbing.”

The testimony came on the fifth day of a pre-trial hearing over the question of access to numerous government records, but which has increasingly turned toward whether the government has been putting up roadblocks to Norman’s defence.