The first of three alleged victims testified Wednesday as a trial continued on charges of criminal harassment — all of which allegedly took place via Twitter.

Stephanie Guthrie, 29, described how she first met Gregory Alan Elliott, who faces three charges of criminal harassment and a count of breaching a peace bond for repeatedly sending messages over Twitter to the women, who allegedly feared for their safety.

After Elliott was charged with criminal harassment on Nov. 21, 2012, Heather Reilly and Paisley Rae came forward and two more charges were laid in January 2013.

Guthrie, a self-described local activist and feminist, said she first met Elliott, 52, over Twitter. She told court she was looking for someone to design a logo and a poster for a group she founded, “Women in TO politics,” and Elliott said he would do it.

The two met for dinner at This End Up on Dundas St. W. in April 2012 to discuss the project. There, Elliott sketched a rough design.

“I felt a little bit creeped out,” Guthrie said of the dinner. “He was leaning across the table. He seemed a little self-involved and egotistical.”

Otherwise, Guthrie said, the meeting was amicable. After dinner, she said, one of her collaborators told her they’d found someone else to design the logo.

So Guthrie emailed Elliott to tell him he could still do the poster, but not the logo. He wanted either projects or nothing, she said as she read several emails to court. She said the relationship was already becoming “strained.” She pulled the offer of the poster design and told him so over email.

Guthrie’s testimony will continue Thursday.

The second day of trial got off to a slow start after the Crown asked the judge for a publication ban on the names of the complainants. The Star and the CBC scrambled lawyers to Old City Hall to fight the application. In the end, the Crown didn’t pursue the application.

Before Guthrie testified, Const. Nathan Dayler, a Toronto police social media officer, spent several hours explaining the intricacies of Twitter to court.

On Tuesday, a police investigator told court he did not find any tweets from Elliott that threatened harm to any of the three women.

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