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The accused was arrested in 2014 and faces more than 30 charges, ranging from public mischief and death threats to false information with intent to cause alarm.

On the first day of the boy’s trial in an Ottawa courtroom, assistant Crown attorney Kerry McVey told court she was going to call young witnesses, some of whom will be travelling with their parents.

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The judge-alone trial heard that one Quebec boy who used the accused’s swatter-for-hire services has already pleaded guilty for enlisting him to call in a bomb threat to his Laval high school.

In all of the fake 911 calls, court heard, the accused mostly disguised his voice. But in one call, the assistant prosecutor said, the accused is plainly heard as himself.

In one case that terrorized a California family, the teen is accused of at first ordering thousands of dollars worth of pizzas to a target’s home. The boy then started making swatting calls to the family home and later the target’s high school, court heard.

Swatting is a fake 911 call that prompts a police department’s SWAT team to be deployed to a target’s address.

In one 911 call, the boy called police in California and posed as a target’s son, reporting that his mother was bleeding to death, causing the local SWAT team to descend on the unsuspecting family, court heard. In another call, police were told there were hostages inside the target address.

The accused teen met one of his alleged victims through Minecraft. The court heard that the alleged victim began playing the online video game at the age of eight, then became an administrator because of his gifted gaming skills.