A man convicted of assaulting a bus driver in Burnaby last year has been handed an 18-month conditional sentence, plus two years probation.
Del Louie, who was 21 at the time of the offence, attacked Coast Mountain bus driver Charles Dixon, 55, on a bus near Edmonds Station on Feb. 15 last year. Dixon was left with a black eye and required surgery (that placed a plate and screws in his face) after he asked Louie not to board his bus via the back doors.
In front of a packed Vancouver courtroom, the judge said she considered the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling asking judges to consider the background circumstances of aboriginal offenders in sentencing.
Louie, 22, who is half First Nations (on his mother's side) apologized to Dixon for the assault and revealed he was drunk at the time of the incident. He was diagnosed with FASD and was exposed to violence and substance abuse early in his childhood, according to his pre-sentence report.
But the Crown pointed out that this was the second time Louie had been convicted of assault. He previously attacked a bus female driver, spitting in her face, and he has twice breached his bail conditions.
Dixon, who was sat in the courtroom for the sentencing with bandages on his face from his most recent surgery, says he is still feeling the effects of the violent sucker punch.
Dixon - who has been targeted 14 times over the course of his 25 years as a driver - has not worked since the attack.
There have been more than 1,000 attacks on bus drivers in the past decade, according to the Crown.
