A New Westminster man who assaulted his landlord following a dispute over his rent has been sentenced to six months less a day in jail.

In March, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Walker found Shawn Ricardo White-Bynoe, 43, guilty of the Dec. 18, 2015 attack on Michael Rowe, 58, and Rowe’s son, Blaine Dunn, 29.

On the day of the incident, Rowe and Dunn were standing outside the apartment building in the 400-block of 8th Street when White-Bynoe came out through the front door and walked in between the two men, causing them to step back.

As White-Bynoe walked past Rowe, the building manager pushed him from behind with one hand, prompting the accused to spin around and raise his arm high and strike Rowe over the head with a metal baton.

After hitting Rowe, White-Byneo chased after Dunn to assault him, hitting him on the back of his jacket with a machete.

Rowe suffered a fractured skull, deep cuts and bone fragments requiring medical intervention. The head injury has left him with headaches, nausea, scars and anxiety. 

In imposing sentence, the judge said that the aggravating factors included that the attack came without warning and involved the use of force that was “all out of proportion” to the situation.

“After striking Mr. Rowe with significant force, he then chased after the much younger Mr. Dunn, who had done nothing to provoke him or cause him to be fearful of his safety,” said the judge.

“Mr. White-Bynoe caused serious, significant, permanent injury to Mr. Rowe and, albeit to a much lesser degree, injury and emotional upset for Mr. Dunn. Mr. White-Bynoe was not impaired by alcohol or drugs.”

The judge said the mitigating factors included that the accused, who immigrated to Canada from Barbados in 2002, had been in Canada for 15 years and had no prior criminal record and had been helping support his girlfriend and her daughter.

He said however that he could attribute limited weight to expressions of remorse from White-Bynoe as he had not fully accepted his role in the assault.

White-Bynoe had little reaction to the sentence. In addition to the jail term, the judge imposed a period of two years of probation.

The conditions of probation include that he have no contact with the victims and stay away from the apartment building where the assault occurred.

Court heard that at the time of the assault, the accused was upset about an ongoing conflict with Rowe over his tenancy in the building.

The dispute involved an attempt by the building owner to evict White-Bynoe due to what was alleged to have been unpaid rent for three months in 2015.  

The Residential Tenancy Branch decided White-Bynoe should be allowed to remain in his unit, but left open the possibility for the owner to take further steps to end the tenancy.

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A Burnaby man who was found guilty of criminally harassing his former wife remained unrepentant during his sentencing hearing Tuesday, defending the website posts that had resulted in his conviction.

In June, a B.C. Supreme Court jury returned the guilty verdict for Patrick Fox, 43, in connection with an attempt by Fox to destroy the reputation of Desiree Capuano through a series of emails and the website he had created.

On Tuesday, Crown counsel Mark Myhre asked Fox in cross-examination whether he felt that it was Capuano making false statements to the media that caused him to lose his software engineering job or whether he accepted some responsibility.

Fox replied that in his termination letter, the reason for the firing was because of a CBC story, not because of the website.

“I would say that it was Ms. Capuano’s false or misleading representations of the facts. I take full responsibility for creating the website and I take full responsibility for every word I’ve written.”

Fox then appeared to qualify that answer when he told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes that as long as what was said on the website was true, he stood by everything on the website, but if it was not true, then he would remove it.

“My intention is to destroy Ms. Capuano’s reputation by publishing the truth about her so that other people will know the kind of person that she really is.”

Fox insisted that if people knew the “full story,” rather than the skewed side in the media reports, he didn’t think people would believe his ex-wife.

Earlier, Fox testified that he felt the CBC story made him almost look like a “monster” to the viewers.

Fox came under cross-examination after he took the stand in a bid to have several hundred emails from the years before the period of time covered by the harassment complaint accepted as evidence for the sentencing hearing.

He claimed that the emails prove that his ex-wife, with whom he was mbroiled in a bitter custody dispute over their son, was attempting to upset and provoke him and that he had merely responded in kind.

Myhre argued that the emails were irrelevant and revealed a great deal of “petty squabbling” between Fox and Capuano. He said they didn’t amount to a provocation for Fox to conduct his campaign of harassment.

The judge however said she would allow the emails in as evidence for the limited purpose of proving that there was a heated battle between Fox and Capuano over their son, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban.

Myhre is expected to continue with his sentencing submissions Wednesday. Fox, who has no lawyer at the sentencing hearing and is representing himself, is also expected to give his submissions Wednesday.

Court heard that Fox and Capuano met in a bar in January 2000, when Fox was going by a different name, and got married in August of that year. Their son was born in September 2000 and the couple was separated in 2001.

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• Jury finds Burnaby man guilty of internet harassment of his ex-wife

A decision denying an Air Canada flight attendant workplace benefits arising from a scary incident on board an aircraft has been overturned by the B.C. Supreme Court.

On May 25, 2012, Kelly Zechel was working as a service director aboard a flight from Tokyo to Vancouver when an acrid smell was detected in the cabin of the aircraft about two hours from Vancouver.

The source of the smell could not be found and the flight was given priority landing status. An emergency response unit was dispatched to accompany the plane as it arrived at Vancouver airport.

Zechel, a flight attendant for 22 years, wasn’t alarmed at what was going on during the flight, as she was focussed on the safety of the passengers and crew.

When firefighters boarded the plane at the airport, they told Zechel there was a noticeable “haze” in the cabin she hadn’t previously noticed.

Zechel was later told that the haze was caused by an overheated entertainment system, which she recalled was the likely cause of the crash of a Swissair flight off the coast of Nova Scotia several years earlier.

She was also reminded that whenever a passenger airline is in trouble and there’s a chance of a crash, fighter jets are scrambled and if necessary, measures are taken to protect against a crash in a populated area.

The gravity of the situation then “hit” her and she cried the length of a flight from Vancouver to Winnipeg later that day, upset about the incident and the possibility her two-year-old son would be left without a mother.

She received trauma counselling and her family doctor diagnosed her with acute stress and lung irritation and she did not return to work until June 4, 2012.

The Workers Compensation Board initially accepted her claim for lost wages but the airline requested a review of the decision and in March 2014, the WCB determined that she had sustained a traumatic event resulting from her work and that her mental stress injury was compensable.

The airline filed a second appeal challenging the evidence of her injury and in February 2015, the appeal was denied.

The company appealed that decision to the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal (WCAT), which found that although she worked in B.C., she commuted to work from her residence in Manitoba and the injury occurred while she was working elsewhere than B.C. and she was therefore not eligible for compensation.

Both Zechel and Air Canada, in separate proceedings, sought judicial review of the WCAT ruling and the cases were heard together by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gary Weatherill.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the judge found that the November 2016 WCAT ruling was patently unreasonable.

He noted a possible scenario in which two flight attendants who are based at the Vancouver airport, one a resident of Alberta and one a resident of B.C., each suffer a similar injury from turbulence on the same flight.

“As a result of the WCAT decision, the flight attendant who resides in British Columbia will have coverage under the (Workers Compensation Act) while the other flight attendant who resides in Alberta will have no coverage,” said the judge. “In my view, such a result is absurd.”

The judge quashed the WCAT ruling and ordered that the matter be sent back for a rehearing in light of his ruling.

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A Vancouver car dealership has been found partly to blame after one of their vehicles was stolen from the company’s lot and was later involved in several serious collisions.

On April 24, 2012, the Dueck Downtown Chevrolet Buick GMC dealership at 888 Terminal Avenue left an unlocked one-ton 2011 GMC Sierra K2500 pickup truck outside a detail bay, with the key in the ignition and the engine running for about 40 minutes before a man named David James Bolton hopped into the vehicle and drove away.

After stealing the vehicle, Bolton drove to Richmond. The dealership helped police locate him through a GPS tracking system built into the truck.

RCMP attempted to arrest Bolton, with an officer pointing his pistol at him and commanding him to stop.

Instead, he backed into a police vehicle and was able to drive away when another police vehicle reversed out of the path of the truck.

Bolton, who was later convicted of several offences related to his dangerous driving, then struck an unmarked police vehicle, with the officer in the vehicle suffering a fractured bone in his neck, a fractured bone in his hand and a leg injury.

A high-speed police pursuit ensued before officers were advised to bring the pursuit to a halt. Several officers turned off their emergency equipment but maintained a pursuit.

At the corner of No. 5 Road and River Road, Bolton, travelling at a high rate of speed with several police vehicles in pursuit, struck a vehicle being driven by a woman with her five-year-old son in the car. The woman suffered serious injuries and her car was a writeoff.

With smoke billowing from the truck, Bolton drove away and managed to avoid a spike belt put down by police before proceeding across the Queensborough Bridge into New Westminster.

He got out of the truck and ran, with police ordering him to stop. When he went into the service bay of a second dealership, he ran toward an SUV in a bid to get into it but was finally stopped by police.

Three civil lawsuits were filed in connection with the incident. Const. Quinn Provost, the cop who was injured, sued Bolton and Dueck. A second suit involved Brandy Brundige, the female driver who was injured, suing Bolton, Dueck and the cops who failed to halt the pursuit as ordered.

The third suit involved the Attorney-General of Canada, the owner of the police vehicles that were damaged in the collisions with Bolton, suing Bolton and Dueck.

In his ruling in the case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher said he had no difficulty with the notion that it was reasonably foreseeable that the truck could be stolen given the careless way the vehicle was left at the dealership.

The judge noted that before the collision it was widely reported that there was a risk to the public resulting from stolen vehicles being driven carelessly by thieves.

“Here, I find that it is reasonably foreseeable that a stolen vehicle could cause serious damage and injuries to the police and bystanders in the vicinity of where the police are attempting to recover the stolen vehicle from the thief,” said the judge.

Kelleher said Dueck had a duty to the plaintiffs to secure the vehicle in its lot and had breached this duty and the breach helped cause the injuries and damage.

The judge said there was no doubt that Bolton, who died at the age of 35 in 2016 and was represented by ICBC at trial pursuant to laws regarding uninsured motorists, was most blameworthy and assessed his liability at 70 per cent in the action brought by Brundige and 85 per cent in the actions brought by the Attorney-General and Const. Provost.

He found that the failure of the police to stop the pursuit leading to the collision involving Brundige left them 15 per cent liable in that case.

“Dueck’s negligence created the situation that was highly tempting to any opportunistic would-be thief. Given the character of the dealership location, the size of the truck and the complete lack of care exercised by Dueck staff, I assess Dueck’s blameworthiness at 15 per cent in all three actions.”

The amount of the damages to be awarded is expected to be determined in court in November.

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A Richmond man who is facing a dangerous offender hearing after being convicted in a sexual assault case has lost a bid to have the case thrown out due to delays in sentencing.

On Aug. 15, 2016, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman found Novid Dadmand guilty of sexually assaulting five women, four of them by deceiving them into believing he was a modelling agent and that they were auditioning for a position as a model.

Two of the victims were unconscious when Dadmand sexually assaulted them, attacks that were captured on video recordings seized by police from the accused.

Following his conviction, the Crown sought to have him declared a dangerous offender and possibly face an indefinite jail sentence.

After the Crown had carried out the steps to apply for the dangerous offender designation, a nine-week hearing was set to begin Sept. 25.

But Dadmand’s lawyers said that the delay was unreasonable and applied for a stay of proceedings and an order quashing the convictions.

The Crown responded by arguing that dangerous offender proceedings, in which a court-appointed assessment of the accused must be done and the approval of the Attorney General obtained to go ahead, were inherently more complex and lengthy than conventional sentence hearings.

Prosecutors Don Montrichard and Kristin Bryson also argued that any prejudice to Dadmand while he awaited sentencing was outweighed by society’s interest in ensuring an appropriate sentence is handed down.

In a ruling released Friday, the judge noted that a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the issue of trial delay, in which limits were imposed on the time it takes from charges to be laid until a verdict, had declined to consider whether the limits applied to delays in sentencing. He said no binding appellate authority provided guidance.

The judge found the total delay from the verdict to the anticipated date of decision on sentencing to be 16 months, a period that was long enough for him to be required to conduct an inquiry.

He found that although some of the delay was attributable to the Crown, the prosecution had also made efforts to minimize any delays and diligently sought the Attorney General’s consent.

Pearlman said that Dadmand, who claimed he’d been assaulted while he was held in a pre-trial facility, had suffered some prejudice through his extended incarceration.

But he also noted that with respect to his fair trial rights, Dadmand’s rights had not been impaired and there was no suggestion that delays in sentencing impaired his ability to call witnesses at the sentencing hearing.

While Dadmand has suffered some prejudice, the prejudice is not substantial, said the judge.

“In any event, the prejudice to Mr. Dadmand is outweighed by society’s interest in ensuring that the court has full and accurate information in order to determine whether or not a sentence of detention in a penitentiary for an indefinite period is warranted in this case,” said Pearlman.

“Weighing all these factors, I conclude that in the circumstances of this case, the delay of 16 months between verdict and the anticipated decision on sentencing is not unreasonable,” the judge added.

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A Vancouver man beat his girlfriend to death in his apartment and then lived with the decomposed body for several weeks, attempting to conceal the murder, a prosecutor said Monday.

Daniel Alphonse Paul, 45, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the 2015 death of Crystal Rose Paul, 36, a mother of five, in the accused’s apartment on East 22nd Avenue near Main.

In his opening statement to a jury, Crown Counsel Daniel Mulligan said that Paul, who was not related or married to the victim although they share the same surname, inflicted a severe beating on his girlfriend some time after Jan. 29, 2015.

The couple both accessed the internet from the same IP address on the day that Rose Paul’s Facebook activity stopped on Jan. 29, 2015, suggesting that they were in the same place, said Mulligan.

“It will be obvious that Mr. Paul continued living in the suite with Rose Paul’s decomposing body in the bedroom for a number of weeks after she was killed,” Mulligan told the jury.

“We will argue that only the person who killed Ms. Paul would do this. There is evidence that Mr. Paul made efforts to conceal what happened.”

Mulligan said that the accused apparently covered the victim’s body with layers of garbage bags and clothing, presumably to stop the odor from spreading, with police later finding many cans of air freshener in the suite.

“When Rose Paul’s daughter, Renee Peters, contacted Mr. Paul to ask why she had not heard from her mother, he offered excuses for her lack of communication even though she was already dead,” said the prosecutor.

“When Renee Peters suggested they file a missing person’s report, Mr. Paul replied that that would be silly.”

Rose Paul.

Mulligan said that on March 1, 2015, a month after Rose Paul was last heard from, Daniel Paul’s landlady spoke to him about a smell she thought was coming from the suite.

Paul said he was not available so she gave him notice that she was conducting an inspection, he said.

The next morning, before the inspection time, surveillance cameras at the home recorded Paul leaving the property carrying a duffel bag and the landlady never saw him again, said Mulligan.

The landlady ultimately discovered the victim’s body on the floor of the bedroom, said the prosecutor, adding that the body was naked and face down.

Rose Paul’s body was badly decomposed and there was a significant amount of blood spatter on furniture and walls, he said.

“The Crown will rely on circumstantial evidence that suggests she was killed in Daniel Paul’s bedroom.”

An autopsy revealed that the victim had multiple blunt force injuries, bruises and cuts to her face, head and body. She also had a missing tooth and a fractured neck bone consistent with strangulation, said Mulligan.

Yennie Hui, Paul’s landlady, testified that Paul was initially “very friendly, very open” when he began renting his suite in the house but over time he appeared to be depressed after losing his job and she saw signs he’d been drinking.

Hui told the jury that in February 2015 she noticed a foul smell in her office located in the home and eventually discovered that it came from Daniel Paul’s suite.

A day after she confronted him, she went to his apartment and when he failed to answer the door, she entered and noticed an “overpowering” smell.

She said she saw some feet in the doorway but thought it was just somebody “stone drunk” and did not investigate until the following day when she and a maintenance worker found a dead body in Paul’s bedroom.

The trial is to continue Tuesday.

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The daughter of a woman who was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend testified Tuesday about the increasing concern her family had over her missing mom.

Renee Peters was taken through her final Facebook communications with her mother and with Daniel Alphonse Paul, 45, who has pleaded not guilty to the 2015 second-degree murder of Crystal Rose Paul, 36.

Under questioning from Crown counsel Daniel Mulligan, Peters said that one of the last Facebook messages she got from her mom stated, “I love you my sweet, forever and ever” on Jan. 29, 2015.

The Vancouver Police Board’s wanted sign for the arrest of Daniel Alphonse Paul in connection with the murder of his girlfriend, Crystal Rose Paul.

The next day she said she sent her mom a message asking her about some of her favourite crackers and got a brief reply about the wrong type of crackers.

On Feb. 4, 2015, Peters — who was born in 1995 and was her mother’s eldest daughter — said she sent a message to the mother of five saying she was sick and that she loved her. She did not receive a reply.

On Feb. 18 that year, she sent a Facebook message to Daniel Paul telling him that she hadn’t heard from her mom since late January.

“Oh really,” replied Daniel Paul on a Facebook message read out in court by Mulligan. “K. I’ll tell her when she wakes.”

In her Facebook reply, Peters said: “Awesome. Thank you so much. How are you lately?”

Daniel Paul replied: “Trying to keep busy.”

It is the Crown’s theory that in the Facebook messages Daniel Paul was lying and trying to conceal the murder and that the fatal beating occurred closer to Jan. 29, 2015 due to the fact that communications between Peters and her mom ceased soon afterward.

At the time of the communications, Peters was living on Sto:lo Nation reserve lands near Hope while her mom was living with Daniel Paul at his apartment on East 22nd Avenue in Vancouver.

On Feb. 20, 2015, Peters sent a message to Daniel Paul telling him that her family was concerned about her missing mom and was thinking about filing a missing person’s report, the jury heard.

Daniel Paul’s response was to say, “that’s silly” and indicated that Crystal Paul hadn’t been able to contact anyone since they’d pawned off her phone, court heard.

On March 1, 2015, Daniel Paul sent Peters a message saying that Crystal Paul couldn’t find the pawn ticket for her phone.

Peters told the jury that around the same time, her Facebook status with Daniel Paul changed and she could no longer see his profile.

“What did that mean to you?” asked Mulligan.

“That he either blocked me or deleted his Facebook account,” said Peters.

“Had you any contact with him or communication with him that would explain why he blocked you on Facebook?” said Mulligan.

“No,” replied Peters.

The Crown’s theory is that Daniel Paul beat his girlfriend to death shortly after Jan. 29, 2015 and that he lived with her decomposed remains until early March of that year when he fled the Vancouver apartment where they were staying. Crystal Paul’s body was discovered and Daniel Paul was arrested April 1, 2015.

The trial is expected to continue Wednesday with more Crown witnesses.

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A judge has thrown out evidence, including a loaded firearm, that was seized during a raid on a meth lab at a Vancouver home after finding police had violated the rights of two residents charged in the case.

After B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nigel Kent concluded that the evidence was inadmissible, the Crown dismissed charges that had been laid against Shu Tshung Wong and Lena Truong.

The accused were charged with seven drug and firearm offences following the discovery of the methamphetamine lab and the handgun at their home in the 2900-block East 15th Avenue on June 15, 2012.

During the execution of a search warrant, members of the Vancouver police and the RCMP clandestine lab team found in the upstairs of the home items associated with the manufacture of meth, including Reactine pills, pipes used for smoking meth and several baggies containing about 28 grams of meth.

In a bedside table police located a Glock firearm in a gun case, with a magazine loaded with 17 cartridges.

Other meth lab equipment, including glassware, precursor chemicals and air filtration masks, was also located in the home.

In pre-trial rulings, the judge found that police had committed eight Charter of Rights breaches against the two accused.

The judge ruled that while both accused were promptly informed of the reasons for their arrest and of their right to retain and instruct a lawyer without delay, they were nonetheless wrongly denied those rights.

Court heard that before the arrests, police had decided that the accused would be detained before the search warrant was executed and that they would be held until the warrant was actually executed.

Police also decided that the accused would be held incommunicado between the time of the arrest and the execution of the warrant, some six hours, during which time their access to a lawyer would be withheld.

The police said the decisions were made to ensure officer and public safety and to prevent any outside communications to destroy evidence.

But the judge said there was no reasonable factual basis for police to believe there was a safety issue or that the destruction of evidence might happen if they were given access to lawyers.

He said the rights violation was “wilful” and “flagrant” and dismissed the police officers’ “dissembling testimony” purporting to justify their decision.

“There can be no doubt the conduct constituted a major and deliberate departure from Charter standards,” said the judge.

“It was conduct expressly approved by senior decision-makers within the police department and perhaps worse still, it was a not uncommon tactic employed by the police on ‘project’ investigation files such as the one in this case.”

Kent said the violation fell at the most serious end of the spectrum and had a significant impact on the accuseds’ interests.

“Society has a very strong interest in detecting, prosecuting and convicting those individuals who operate ‘meth labs’ and who commit firearms offences,” he said.

“Sometimes, however, police misconduct in investigating these crimes is such that evidence critical to the prosecution must be excluded and the accused set free as a consequence.”

The judge said the police misconduct surrounding the arrest and detention of the accused was enough on its own to exclude the evidence.

But he added that if he was wrong about that, he would hold that the cumulative effect of all of the breaches, which also included covert surveillance of the home and swabbing of Wong’s vehicle, would produce the same result.

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Evidence that a teen convicted in the swarming death of Luka Gordic in Whistler threatened a Crown witness has been admitted for the sentencing hearing of the killer.

Arvin Golic was 18 when Gordic, 19, was surrounded by a group of youths and stabbed to death in May 2015. Golic and Gordic were among a group of Burnaby teens partying in Whistler during the long weekend to celebrate graduation.

In June this year, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mary Humphries found Golic guilty of one count of manslaughter. He had initially been charged with second-degree murder.

The judge found that Golic, who participated in the attack by punching Gordic, had a motive to cause the victim harm, namely that he was angry because Gordic had told a friend of the accused that it was known that Golic was abusive to Golic’s former girlfriend and should stop doing that.

Sentencing for Golic was to begin Sept. 13 but before submissions could begin, the Crown sought to have evidence that Golic had on June 6, 2016 threatened his former girlfriend, Devon Luksic, admitted at the sentencing hearing.

Court heard that the evidence of the threat consisted of a transcript of a tape recording of a complaint to police made by Luksic, who subsequently testified at the Golic trial, as well as a screen shot of a text message alleged to be from Golic to Luksic, sent the same day.

According to the transcript, Luksic told police that she’d received a call from Golic that morning in which he said to her, “Hey, you stupid bitch, you know it’s me.” She then stated that he started saying she’d been seeing another guy that he knows and that he had a beef with that guy.

Luksic told Golic to stop contacting her and he responded by saying, “No f— you, I’m gonna kill you and everyone you talk to.”

She said Golic told her words to the effect of “you’re a stupid bitch, a shady bitch, you’re stabbing me in the back” and he wanted to kill her and anyone she talks to, and to watch her back. Golic also allegedly threatened the “Serbs,” meaning Luka Gordic’s friends, and said they should watch their backs.

Later that day, Luksic received what the judge termed a “placatory and somewhat affectionate” text from Golic saying he was sorry, wanted the best for her, asking her to call him one last time and she would never hear from him again, and saying she stabbed him in the back like no one ever could.

Contact between Golic and Luksic was forbidden by the terms of the accused’s bail and after the report was made, a charge of threatening was laid against him and his bail was revoked. Luksic began her three days of testimony at Golic’s trial in March.

Golic’s lawyer denied that the phone call took place but was content to deal with the merits of the evidence through the transcript.

He argued that the court should exercise its discretion and not admit the evidence of the threat because it didn’t shed light on the circumstances of the offence and had no similarity to the crime and would unduly prolong the hearing.

But the Crown said while the evidence was not an aggravating factor and could not be used to increase Golic’s sentence, its relevance was high because it went to the issues of insight and remorse and was highly germane to the issue of rehabilitation.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the judge agreed with the Crown that the evidence was generally relevant and could go to the issue of character and lack of remorse and may be relevant to the issue of rehabilitation.

She said the defence may convince her at the sentencing hearing, scheduled for Oct. 17, that Luksic’s past record for truthfulness was such that she should not accept that the call occurred as Luksic reported it and should not rely on the evidence. 

A verdict for three youths also charged in the fatal attack on Gordic is expected Sept. 25.

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A man who was convicted in the slaying of a co-worker outside a Vancouver pool hall has been sentenced to six months less a day in jail.

In June, B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke found Kim Tuong Nguyen guilty of the April 3, 2015 manslaughter of Minh Doan outside the Kien Giang Billiard Hall on Kingsway.

The two Vietnamese men, who worked for the same drywall installation company, occasionally frequented the pool hall. On the day of the slaying, they had gotten into an argument inside the premises.

Other patrons at the pool hall had separated the two men, but the dispute later spilled outside, with Nguyen lunging from a concrete barrier in the parking lot toward Doan, who fell backward and struck his head on the pavement.

Doan, who was married and had one child, was rushed to Vancouver General Hospital but died of his injuries the following day.

The Crown argued that Nguyen had punched Doan in the face, but the judge said there was a reasonable doubt that he had done so. The judge did conclude that an assault had occurred and that Nguyen had caused Doan’s death and was therefore guilty of manslaughter.

In imposing sentence, the judge noted that sentencings for manslaughter can vary widely depending on the circumstances of the offender and the offence, and found that in Nguyen’s case, he fell at the lowest end of the range.

Aggravating factors included that the tragic death could easily have been avoided had Nguyen followed the advice of his friends at the pool hall to simply leave the premises and go home, and that when Doan fell to the ground, Nguyen returned and tried to kick him.

The mitigating factors were that Nguyen had no prior criminal record or propensity toward violence and the crime was out of character for him.

The judge told Nguyen that he had caused “terrible suffering” for Doan’s family, but that the circumstances were unusual.

“If I had found that the Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that you struck Mr. Doan with your fist, I would have concluded that the appropriate sentence must be one of at least three years,” said Ehrcke.

“As the assault in this case did not involve a punch, however, and as you have no criminal record and apparently no propensity to violence, I am satisfied that this is one of those exceptional and truly rare cases in which a sentence at the bottom end of the range can appropriately be imposed.”

The judge sentenced Nguyen to six months less a day in prison and three years of probation.

Court heard that while Nguyen is a resident of Canada, he is not a Canadian citizen. As a result of his conviction, he is inadmissible to Canada and subject to deportation. Because the judge gave him a sentence of less than six months, he will be able to file an appeal to any deportation order.

Ehrcke’s written reasons for sentence were posted at the court’s website Thursday, but were delivered orally on Aug. 15.

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The trial of a man accused of assaulting his wife and his two sons and attacking two of the family pets over a 14-year period opened in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Monday.

The man, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, pleaded not guilty to 17 criminal counts, including assault, assault causing bodily harm, causing unnecessary pain or suffering to an animal and criminal harassment.

Crown counsel Joseph Marin told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown that the offences against the accused’s wife, their two sons and two family dogs spanned the period from 2001 to 2015 and first came to light when one of the sons went to the RCMP in September 2015.

The alleged offences occurred in a number of Lower Mainland communities, including Surrey and White Rock, and in Pemberton.

The couple got married in 1999 and remain married, but are separated and seeking a divorce from one another, court heard.

The accused’s wife, the first witness called by the Crown, told the judge that the relationship with her husband was “all right” until he started attending law school and things “changed a lot.”

She said her husband began getting more and more hostile toward her and her children and recalled an incident in which her husband kicked one of the sons across the room, saying “get off me, you little s–t.”

“He didn’t want anyone in his space at all. He didn’t want anybody near him.”

The witness said her husband pushed her “hundreds of times” and pushed one of their sons as well. She recalled one incident in which her husband kicked her in the side “as hard as he could.”

“He kicked me like he was kicking a dog to get out of his way.”

Her husband at one point was diagnosed with a medical condition making him intolerant to foods with gluten in them and became paranoid, accusing one of his sons of poisoning him by putting wheat in his food, she said.

The accused kicked that son in the stomach, through a doorway, claiming it was in self-defence, she said.

“What was the son’s age at the time?” asked Marin.

“Eight or nine,” she said.

Around that time, her husband started kicking the family’s “very old, sweet” border-collie cross.

“He would just get mad and kick her,” she told the judge.

The dog was kicked “regularly” — on a daily basis, she added.

“He’d kick her and claim that he didn’t kick her,” she said.

On one occasion, her husband hit her in the back of the head until she was close to being unconscious, said the witness. The next morning, she felt so awful that she couldn’t take care of their young daughter and called her mom to come and help her, she said.

Later, she called her husband and said she needed help, but he refused, saying “tough s–t,” she said. She didn’t call for medical assistance because she didn’t want to get him into trouble, she added.

The witness also described an attack in which she said her husband had either kicked or punched her in the liver.

“It was incredibly painful and it knocked me out. It felt like somebody had filleted my liver. It felt like it had split into all kinds of pieces.” Again, she didn’t go to a doctor because she was scared and didn’t want him to get into trouble because it would be bad for her, she said.

The trial is expected to continue Tuesday.

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A Surrey dentist whose front teeth were broken during an unprovoked assault at a wedding reception has been awarded more than $50,000 in damages.

Dr. Himmat Singh Bajwa testified at his civil trial that he was attacked by Gurpaul Purgash Singh Deol and another person as he and his wife were leaving the reception at Bombay Banquet Hall on Aug. 11, 2012.

He said Deol, who has pleaded guilty to assault in the criminal courts in relation to the incident and been sentenced to one day in jail and one year of probation, charged him and punched him in the side of the face with what appeared to be brass knuckles.

Bajwa said that he was stunned by the blow and was then hit by another individual on the back of the head with a hard object, causing him to fall to the ground and lose consciousness.

His front teeth were broken and he suffered a split lip and numerous abrasions to his cheek and chin as well as scrapes and cuts to the back of his head.

After being discharged from the hospital, he received treatment from a dentist and had a follow-up with a plastic surgeon.

He missed a week of work, could not chew properly for about two or three weeks, and suffered from facial swelling, headaches and difficulty sleeping, as well as anxiety and a fear of going out in public.

Deol, who unsuccessfully sought to have a default judgment against him in the case set aside, argued that Bajwa’s injuries were not as extensive as he suggested or were not caused by his actions.

But B.C. Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown found Bajwa’s testimony to be “entirely credible” and accepted his evidence, noting that an affidavit filed by Deol was inconsistent with a position he had advanced on more than one occasion.

While Bajwa’s injuries were not as extensive as those in other similar court cases, the judge said they were nonetheless very serious.

“It was an unprovoked attack. Three of Mr. Bajwa’s teeth were broken. He will require further dental repair. He suffered a loss of income. He experienced headaches and anxiety.”

The appropriate award of damages was $55,000, said the judge, adding that she was also satisfied that the plaintiff had lost $3,000 worth of income as a result of the assault and will incur dental repair of $7,000.

Bajwa sued several other defendants with those matters being settled for an undisclosed amount. The judge said that the amount paid in damages by the other defendants would be deducted from the amount to be paid by Deol.

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A man who stabbed a Prince George security guard to death and is serving a life sentence for murder has allegedly slashed an inmate in prison, according to a recent court ruling.

The inmate assault allegation against Gerry Joseph Leiding was revealed in a ruling that dismissed his challenge to a decision by corrections officials to transfer him to a medium-security prison.

Court heard that Leiding, who was convicted of the January 1999 second-degree murder of Dale Statham and sentenced to life with no parole for 15 years, began serving his sentence at the Mission Institution medium-security federal prison.

He was eventually transferred to the William Head Institution, a minimum-security prison on Vancouver Island, which is near his former home.

But he was moved back to Mission in December 2015 when his inability or unwillingness to manage his emotions resulted in numerous staff interventions and corrections staff found unauthorized items in his room.

In September 2016, Leiding applied for a transfer back to William Head. A review by correctional staff rated him a medium security inmate, but his case-management team was supportive of the transfer.

In November 2016, the warden of Mission agreed to approve the transfer, but the transfer was stopped when Leiding allegedly used an X-Acto knife to assault another inmate at Mission.

A hearing held in January resulted in the warden issuing a decision that Leiding’s security classification would be maintained at medium.

In a lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Leiding complained that he was denied procedural fairness and was not told when and where the alleged slashing occurred and did not receive any corroborative evidence.

The warden told the court that the offender had received all of the relevant available information except the identity of a source only referred to as Source A.

In his ruling in the case, B.C. Supreme Court Justice George Macintosh said that despite the able submissions of Leiding’s lawyer, his application for a transfer back to William Head could not be approved.

“All the information relied upon by the warden in reaching her decision was provided by Mr. Leiding prior to the hearing. He had been told of the alleged slashing and who the alleged victim was.”

Leiding also received information that the victim of his alleged slashing had recanted his complaint against Leiding, noted the judge.

“The warden, in reaching her decision, was entitled to draw upon her judgment and experience, obtained from her work, in maintaining a classification of medium risk for Mr. Leiding,” said the judge. “The evidence included that which was given by Source A and in addition, evidence that correctional staff saw the injuries on the victim’s abdomen.”

The jury at Leiding’s murder trial heard that he and a friend had stolen a vehicle in Vanderhoof and were at a motel in Prince George the next morning to look for another vehicle to steal when Statham, a security guard at the motel, approached Leiding’s friend in the stolen vehicle.

When Leiding, then 24 years old, returned, Statham tried to take him to a nearby store to call police, but during a fight, Statham was stabbed 19 times by Leiding. Witnesses said that the victim begged for his life during the fatal assault, saying, “Stop, I have kids. Don’t do this.”

The ruling was posted at the court’s website Tuesday, but given out orally by the judge in July.

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A B.C. businesswoman who was falsely labelled a terrorist and an arms dealer and who had a civil lawsuit thrown out in the United States has quietly filed a similar lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court.

Earlier this year, Perienne de Jaray had a lawsuit that she had filed in Western Washington District Court – in which she claimed she and her father were wrongly targeted by Canadian officials who hoped to prove Canada was tough on terrorism – dismissed after the court found American laws grant immunity to foreign states.

De Jaray appealed the decision but the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling that she couldn’t sue Canada for malicious prosecution or abuse of process.

But the case is far from over. In August, she filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court making many of the same claims.

“This claim is for recovery of a professionally accomplished young professional woman’s life, reputation, fortune and future that were critically damaged by the actions of officials of the government of Canada in a criminal investigation and resulting criminal charges where there was no crime and some of the officials knew there was no crime,” says her B.C. lawsuit.

The suit adds that not only was there no crime committed, but officials brought allegations against de Jaray of involvement in “international terrorist-related activity” without a shred of evidence for the purpose of using her to put pressure on her father to admit involvement in a crime that never occurred.

At the time of the allegations, de Jaray was the co-owner and executive vice-president of the Washington-based Apex USA, once a multi-million dollar subsidiary of electronics maker Apex Canada, which her father, Steven de Jaray, had founded.

Steve de Jaray, whose company was wrongly accused by the federal government of exporting electronic components that could be a threat to national security, in White Rock, BC., January 30, 2014.

In April 2010, de Jaray and her father were charged in Canada with two counts of exporting controlled goods. It was alleged that military technology had been exported by the company to China in violation of export controls.

The Canadian government had shared the allegation with the FBI, who investigated the daughter’s Washington state company. But the case fell apart and in August 2011, the charges were dismissed. Steven de Jaray sued the Canadian government and reportedly received a large settlement.

His daughter, who lived in the US at the time of the allegations and now lives in B.C., elected initially to pursue her civil lawsuit in the US but after the failure of that lawsuit has filed suit in B.C.

Her B.C. action alleges wrongful acts on the part of officials, employees or servants of the Canada Border Services Agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defence.

No response has yet been filed to the lawsuit, which contains allegations that have not been proven. The Attorney-General of Canada is the named defendant.

With files from Canadian Press

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• Daughter of woman allegedly killed by her boyfriend testifies about Facebook messages with accused

Daniel Alphonse Paul, who has pleaded not guilty to the January 2015 second-degree murder of Rose Paul, told a jury that he believed someone broke into the East 22nd Avenue apartment and killed his girlfriend.

He testified that he believed that the killers were from the same group who he said had in November 2014 confronted and fought him and Rose Paul following a dispute at a local bar.

Paul, 45, said that he discovered the body of Rose Paul, who has the same surname as him but is not married or related to him, after the couple had been drinking heavily and he’d woken up in the night to go to the bathroom.

As he came back to bed, he said he saw Paul lying on the floor and wanted to wake her up.

“Just as I was reaching down to grab her, there was blood all over the place,” he said. “I was, ‘Holy s. t,'” and I stepped back.”

He said he gave Paul a nudge and there was no response so he grabbed her arms and checked for a pulse.

“I couldn’t find any pulse. So I tried the other arm. Again there was no pulse.”

Paul, who was employed as a safety officer in construction and had training in first aid, said he then lifted up Paul’s head and tried to get a pulse on her neck but there was no pulse.

“I didn’t know what to do. I’m sitting there, looking at everything. What had happened? There was so much blood. I sat there in front of her. ‘Oh my God, babe, what happened?'”

Under questioning from defence lawyer John Turner, Paul said he checked himself to see if he was injured and found no injuries on himself and sat in shock before taking a big drink from a rum bottle.

“I’m shocked, I’m nervous, I’m scared, horrified by what I just woke up to.”

The accused told the jury that he checked the front door and found it unlocked, adding that he and Paul never left the door unlocked.

Asked by Turner what conclusions he reached, he said that he felt that the killing was going to be blamed on him and that he would be charged with murder.

“Why is that?” asked Turner.

“Because I’m the only one there. I had nothing to say anybody else was there.”

He said he was too fearful to call police as he believed that he faced a possible life sentence and that as an Aboriginal man, he’d never get a fair trial in Canada.

“You believed that you weren’t the one that had caused Rose’s death,” said Turner.

“Yes, I believed I’m not the one who had done this to Rose,” said Paul.

The accused admitted he stayed at the apartment for nearly a month while the body was decomposing and did nothing to clean things up, but said the majority of the time he was not inside the apartment.

He admitted he lied to Rose Paul’s daughter in the weeks following the slaying when she contacted him to find out where her mother was. The Crown’s theory is that Paul beat his girlfriend to death and is guilty of murder.

Under cross-examination by Crown counsel Daniel Mulligan, Paul denied a suggestion that he had come up with the story about the “mystery” killers to explain away what had happened in the apartment.

Mulligan told Paul he could have contacted the police and shown them that he had no injuries on his hands or anywhere on his body but the accused said he knew he was going to be “suspect number one” with the police.

Paul denied a suggestion by Mulligan that he would say anything in the case to avoid any responsibility for killing his girlfriend.

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• Daughter of woman allegedly killed by her boyfriend testifies about Facebook messages with accused

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A Vancouver man accused of the murder of his girlfriend admits that he let the victim’s body decompose in his apartment as long as possible after the slaying.

Daniel Alphonse Paul, 45, has pleaded not guilty to the January 2015 second-degree murder of Crystal Rose Paul, 36.

The Crown theory is that he beat his girlfriend to death and then lived with the corpse for nearly a month before fleeing his apartment.

Paul denies that he killed her, but admits that he remained in the apartment on East 22nd Avenue and put garbage bags and clothes over the body and used air-freshener in the suite.

Under cross-examination by Crown counsel Daniel Mulligan, Paul conceded that by letting the victim’s body decompose, he was making it more difficult for the authorities, including a pathologist, to investigate what had happened.

“Essentially what you did was you buried her in your bedroom, under the garbage bags, in order to make it difficult for anyone to smell she was there, right?” said Mulligan.

“Yes,” Paul told a B.C. Supreme Court jury Friday, his second day of testimony.

“The purpose of that was to buy yourself more time before the authorities investigated what happened to Rose, right?” said Mulligan.

“Yes,” replied Paul.

Asked by Mulligan whether his desire to protect his own skin outweighed any interest he had in finding out what happened to Rose, he said he knew he was going to be a prime suspect for police and believed he would never get a fair trial.

“Your desire to protect your own skin outweighed any feelings you had for Rose or her family,” said Mulligan.

Daniel Alphonse Paul.

“Yes,” said Paul.

Mulligan took the accused through a number of other things that he said were proof that Paul had tried to foil investigators.

Paul admitted that he had washed his bloody clothing in the aftermath of the slaying, but denied that he had discarded items of clothing.

The accused testified that he was “terrified” when he woke up and found Paul’s body lying on the floor in his apartment.

Mulligan pointed out, however, that despite any terror he might have felt, in the days following the slaying, he used the victim’s bank card to withdraw money from her account.

Paul admitted that he was stealing from the account and that he repeatedly took money from the account throughout February 2015.

He conceded that he was aware that his girlfriend, a mother of five, regularly got money from the government and he frequently checked the account to see when the government money was deposited.

“And as soon as it was deposited, you were going to grab it, right?” said Mulligan.

“Yes,” replied Paul.

The accused admitted that on the day of the slaying he began reaching out to other women on Facebook, seeking pen pals. He admitted that he communicated with one woman who was in the United States and that he thought about fleeing across the border to the U.S.

In communications with another woman, he was asked whether he had been a “bad boy” and he replied in the affirmative.

Paul’s trial is expected to continue next week with final submissions from the lawyers and a charge by the trial judge, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Grauer, followed by the jury beginning their deliberations.

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A Vancouver man with a history of violence against his intimate partners has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend.

After a day of deliberations, a B.C. Supreme Court jury on Wednesday found Daniel Alphonse Paul, 45, guilty of the January 2015 second-degree murder of Crystal Rose Paul, 36, a mother of five.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Grauer then asked the jury whether they had a recommendation to make on parole ineligibility for the accused.

A second-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 25 years of parole ineligibility.

The jury told the judge that they could not give an exact number of years of recommended parole ineligibility but that the minimum of 10 years was insufficient.

Crystal Rose Paul’s remains were found in a Vancouver basement suite in March 2015.

Crown counsel Daniel Mulligan told the judge that the sentencing hearing for Paul would take longer than usual as the accused had been found to be a long-term offender in 2004 after a series of convictions for violence against intimate partners, including a conviction for aggravated assault and sexual assault against a previous girlfriend.

Paul was sentenced to four years in prison in 2004, to be followed by the five-year long-term supervision order. But he repeatedly breached the order, including the special condition that he report any intimate relationships.

A parole board report from 2010 noted that Paul, an Aboriginal man who suffers from alcoholism, could not control his rage when under the influence of intoxicants.

The information about Paul’s prior criminal record, which dates back to 1987 and includes 15 convictions, was not before the jury as it would have been deemed evidence he had a propensity to commit violence against women.

At trial, the Crown’s theory was that Paul fatally beat his girlfriend while she was staying at his Vancouver apartment on East 22nd Avenue and then took steps to try to conceal the murder.

He piled layers of garbage bags and clothing on top of the decomposing body to limit the smell as well as using air freshener in the suite.

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• Vancouver man admits he let his girlfriend's body decompose as long as possible
• Man accused of murdering his girlfriend and then living with her corpse denies killing her
• Vancouver man beat his girlfriend to death and lived with the body for several weeks: Crown

Court heard that Paul lied to the victim’s daughter, who had contacted him to find out her mother’s whereabouts.

Paul, who admitted being in the apartment when the killing happened but denied the actual killing, spent nearly a month with the body in the suite before his landlady became suspicious because of the smell.

When the landlady said she would be coming by to inspect the suite, Paul fled the building and the body was subsequently discovered. The victim had suffered multiple blunt force injuries, bruises and cuts to her face, head and body.

Police launched a manhunt for Paul and later offered a $10,000 reward for his apprehension. Paul was arrested on April 1, 2015, by police who spotted him riding a bicycle on West Broadway.

The case has been put over until Oct. 23 to fix a date for the sentencing hearing.

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A University of B.C. student testified Tuesday about a terrifying attack in which a male student burst into her room, held a knife to her throat and tried to choke her.

Mary Hare told a judge that she’d just woken up in her third-floor dorm at the Salish house student residence on Oct. 4, 2016 when she heard a knock on her door.

When she opened the door, a man entered and attacked her with a knife, she said.

“He grabbed me and he had a knife to my throat and he was cutting me,” Hare told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Margot Fleming. “I didn’t know what was going on. I just started screaming. I was saying, ‘Someone help me.’ ”

Hare, 20, told the judge that in addition to cutting her in the throat, her attacker started choking her and put his hand over her mouth.

She said she tried to pull the attacker’s hand away and pulled at the knife blade to try to get the attacker to let her go.

“I was terrified. I thought this was when I realized the guy was going to kill me. I was just so scared.”

Hare, a first-year arts student at the time, said her attacker got on top of her and she felt she was losing consciousness.

She said, however, that she kept “fighting and fighting” and eventually two other female students came in the room to help her.

Thamer Hameed Almestadi, an 18-year-old international student from Saudi Arabia, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon in connection with an incident at the Salish House student residence on the UBC campus on Oct. 4, 2016.

Two male students also came into the room to help her and she was able to pull the attacker’s hands off of her, she said.

“I ran out of the room, lay down on the ground and was crying and crying. People helped me. The police came. I was just wanting to go back to sleep. I was so upset.”

Hare suffered three cuts to the throat, one of the wounds five inches long and requiring stitches. She also suffered abrasions during the attack.

On the first day of his trial Tuesday, Thamer Hameed Almestadi, an 18-year-old international student from Saudi Arabia, pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Hare. He also pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

Hare told the judge that she had only talked to Almestadi once very briefly about two weeks prior to the attack. After police took Almestadi  into custody, they found a package of steak knives in his room.

In his opening statement, Crown counsel Daniel Porte told the judge that there was no doubt there was an attack and the only question for the court was why Almestadi committed the assault.

The main issue to be determined is whether Almestadi is not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder, Porte said, adding that there would be various witnesses called to testify on the accused’s mental health.

A paramedic who spoke to the accused immediately after the attack reported that Almestadi spoke of being paranoid, of hearing voices and of being concerned that there were people talking about him.

A search of Almestadi’s electronic devices, including a laptop and several cellphones, found no evidence of a motive for the attack, Porte told the judge.

Almestadi’s instructors at UBC had taken note of his absence from classes and his failure to hand in assignments. One instructor noted that he seemed “very stressed.”

According to statements provided by the accused’s mother and his sister, the accused was sad, homesick and depressed.

Hare, an Oregon native, is not attending UBC this year but said she may eventually return to B.C.’s biggest university. She said outside court that she was “pretty nervous” about her testimony.

Asked her reaction to news that Almestadi’s mental health is an issue at trial, Hare said she’s still afraid to open the door and go outside and meet people.

“That’s not easy to get over. If there is a mental problem, if there is something going on, then I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I just would like to see him away from anyone else he could hurt.”

The trial is expected to continue Wednesday with the Crown playing Almestadi’s three-hour video statement to police.

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• Teen arrested following assault at UBC dorm

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A former manager with the Site C dam project has filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit alleging he was fired after he raised concerns about safety in the workplace.

Kent Peyton said that in January he was hired to get construction of the Peace River dam on schedule and on budget and that he was responsible for all high-level decision-making related to the excavation process as well as being in charge of the health and safety of all workers.

But in a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Peyton said that in May 2017 operations for a so-called cofferdam excavation site were significantly behind schedule due to inefficiencies that predated his employment.

He claims that to speed up the operations, other officials gave instructions to workers to undertake construction practices which were dangerous and likely to lead to a workplace safety incident.

Peyton said that on a visit to the site on May 10, he found that a watertight pit was severely overcrowded with workers and heavy equipment including at least seven excavators, three bulldozers and six drills — all working in “unsafe” proximity to one another.

He also pointed to access roads into the pit which he said were steeper than permitted.

Peyton said he approached one of the officials and instructed him that certain of the crews and equipment needed to be immediately relocated to an adjacent work site to safeguard the health and safety of those on site but that his instructions were not followed.

Instead, he said, the official initiated an altercation between the two men and used abusive language towards Peyton in front of other workers and that the official accused Peyton of striking the official, an allegation denied by Peyton.

The wrongful dismissal suit said that on May 12, Peyton was informed that as a result of the incident, he had been barred from the Site C project work site until further notice and was formally terminated June 20.

He claims that his employers failed to properly investigate the incident and failed to discharge their obligation of good faith and fair dealing owed to him.

“Further, the employer terminated Mr. Peyton’s employment in a callous and insensitive manner, and specifically failed to act in the candid, reasonable, honest and forthright manner that was a common expectation of the parties at the outset of the employment relationship,” says the suit.

“Mr. Peyton claims aggravated damages resulting from his public humiliation by the employer as a result of the manner of the termination of his employment.”

Named as the defendants in the case are Petrowest Corporation and Peace River Hydro Partners, the latter of which holds the main civil works contract for the Site C project. No responses have been filed to the lawsuit, which contains allegations that have not been tested in court.

The B.C. Utilities Commission is midway through a review of the project which was promised by Premier John Horgan in last May’s election, with the commission’s final report expected to be filed Nov. 1.

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A University of B.C. student who came to the rescue of another student being assaulted in her dorm took the witness stand Thursday at the trial of the man accused of the crime.

Adam Casey said that he was returning to his student residence after attending classes when several “pretty intense” women ran in to the residence’s common building and reported that someone was choking a person in the nearby Salish house residence.

The 19-year-old mechanical engineering student said he asked if they had called 911 and when they replied that they had, he ran toward the Salish residence and up the stairs to the room where the assault was occurring.

The door to the room was slightly ajar and when he pushed the door open, he saw a man and a woman with the man’s hand around her neck, strangling her, Casey told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Margot Fleming.

“I threw my backpack on the bed and I went to try to pry his hands off her neck,” Casey said. “I wasn’t able to do so. He was holding on too tight.”

Casey, who has some martial-arts training, said he went behind the man and performed a chokehold on him.

“I put my arm around his neck and my legs around his body for leverage. I was hoping he’d release the woman’s neck. He did not do that.”

He said he was able to put one arm under the assailant’s armpit and pull back his arm and held him there until several people came into the room and began trying to pull the victim away.

“It was quite a struggle,” he said.

Eventually, several others were able to drag the victim away and into the hallway, where she was treated for knife wounds to her neck.

Thamer Hameed Almestadi, an 18-year-old international student from Saudi Arabia, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon in connection with an incident at the Salish House student residence on the University of B.C. campus on Oct. 4, 2016.

Casey said he kept his chokehold on the assailant, who he later identified as the accused, Thamer Hameed Almestadi, for about another minute before releasing him.

“I eased up on his neck to see how he would react and he didn’t react at all. When he became more responsive, I asked him if he was on drugs and he said no.”

Shortly afterward, the police arrived and took the suspect into custody. Casey said he left the room and saw the victim, Mary Hare, collapsed on the floor outside the room and receiving first aid. He said he saw a knife on the ground in the hallway.

Under cross-examination, Casey said he didn’t smell any alcohol on Almestadi, and the accused didn’t seem agitated and didn’t struggle with police when they arrived.

Almestadi has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Hare. He also pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

Jamie Grant, a paramedic, testified that when he treated Almestadi for some cuts at the UBC RCMP jail, the accused told him that earlier that morning he felt like people were talking about him and following him. He told the judge that Almestadi also said he’d been having hallucinations and hadn’t slept well in three weeks.

The main issue at trial is whether the accused was not criminally responsible for his actions due to a mental disorder.

The trial is expected to continue Friday.

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