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A judge has found a Toronto police officer guilty of assaulting a protester with a weapon at the city’s G20 summit three years ago.

Protester Adam Nobody clapped as the verdict was read, while another officer in the courtroom let out a loud sigh.

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The Crown had argued that Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani was overwhelmed by the chaos and “lashed out” at the protester, hitting him with a baton after the man had been wrestled to the ground.

But in issuing her verdict Thursday, Judge Louise Botham told court “a police officer is not entitled to use unlimited force to affect an arrest.”

“His explanation that he was responding to Adam Nobody’s resistance is nothing more than an after the fact attempt to justify his blows,” Botham said.

“I accept that in a dynamic situation, arrests need to occur quickly and officers may well need to use force to ensure that happens,” she said. “(But) even on the defendant’s evidence the resistance offered by Adam Nobody was minimal.”