TORONTO — Kelly Pflug-Back cut quite the striking figure Monday, sitting by her lawyer Steve Gehl, alternately mugging for a crowd of supporters behind her, yawning widely, tossing her russet locks and performing a series of arching stretches.

Pflug-Back earlier this year pleaded guilty to seven counts of mischief and one of wearing a disguise during the G-20 protests in Toronto in June of 2010. On Monday, prosecutor Liz Nadeau attempted to prove the 23-year-old was one of the "directing minds" that saw the protest become a rampage. Nadeau only partly succeeded, with Ontario Superior Court Judge John McMahon ultimately agreeing that Pflug-Back did provide "a very limited leadership role" in guiding a group of Black Bloc members away from a small perfumery with a shout of, "Leave it alone! We only want big business!"

Suffice to say the twin impulses that appeared to guide her conduct during the G-20 — she dressed head-to-toe in black and wore a skull-decorated bandana over her face (presumably for anonymity while she was attacking a police car, store windows and an ATM, often with a wooden pole), but also wore a bright, wide silver belt that made her easy to spot even among the Black Bloc — appear to have been at work Monday as well.

A pretty girl, she wore a short black skirt, tights, and a close-fitting shiny silk blouse to court. She could hardly go overlooked.

Yet during the lunch break, her fans attempted to hide her from photographers with open umbrellas, while others bumped and berated the people with the cameras.

In any case, the actual sentencing never came: The remarkably courteous Judge McMahon was wretchedly busy and the flow of the hearing constantly interrupted by various groups of lawyers and their clients seeking an available judge, room or interpreter.

So, Pflug-Back must return to court on July 13, when Nadeau is expected to ask for a sentence of between 18-24 months, while Gehl will be seeking a conditional, or non-custodial, sentence.

But for all that, what was genuinely compelling about the daylong proceeding was also what was compelling about the scenes played on courtroom monitors from the protests two long years ago — the dynamics of the mob.

I was at the tail end of writing a book during the G-20, and was basically locked in a room, typing and trying not to watch television coverage of the day that was arguably the most violent in Toronto's history. Though the marches and violence happened not far from my house, I only ever saw them on the tube.

But though the pictures introduced through the prosecutor's only witness at this hearing, Toronto Police Detective-Constable Andrew Hassell — the photos were a fraction of the 6,000 he took during the event — were designed to show Pflug-Back in action, they also showed those around her.

It wasn't the black-clad "criminal thugs," to use Judge McMahon's words, that caught my attention: They were merely pathetic, not to mention cowardly.

It was the dozens — hundreds — of folks standing by and watching, most with cellphone cameras on the go, who were interesting. Who laughs and films a burning police car? Who moves out of the way so that the Black Bloc can move in on a plate-glass window, and then films it? Who opens up an umbrella to shield a kid throwing rocks into a store from having his picture taken?