A provincial court judge has found a Burnaby man guilty of assault for kicking his estranged friend when he was down.
Peter Greensmyth, 32, and Daniel Kennedy, 31, both born and raised in Ireland, had been buddies since their early teens and for much of their lives were very close, according to court documents.
By the time they met at a gathering to watch a Canada-Ireland Rugby World Cup game on TV at a North Vancouver banquet hall on Sept. 19, 2015, however,the pair had grown apart.
“In various parties’ testimony, it emerged that Mr. Kennedy and perhaps especially Mrs. Kennedy did not care for Mr. Greensmyth’s wife, and Mr. Greensmyth’s wife did not care for Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy,” court documents state.
The two men got into it after the match.
Kennedy, who testified that he had been about four-out-of-10 drunk, said he didn’t remember exactly what they’d been arguing about.
Greensmyth, who said he’d been sober that whole morning, testified Kennedy had been making disparaging comments about Greensmyth’s marriage – among other things, calling him his wife’s “bitch” and expressing surprised he’d been allowed out to watch the game.
Kennedy told the court Greensmyth had asked him if he wanted to take it outside and then sucker-punched him as they made their way to the door.
While on the floor, he said he felt three or four blows to his head and body.
But Greensmyth said Kennedy had leapt out of his seat at him and Greensmyth had punched him in the face in self-defence.
He said Kennedy had hit his head on some chairs as he fell to the ground and that he had pushed Kennedy back onto the ground with an extended leg and shoved him once or twice with his foot to give himself time to get away because it looked like Kennedy was going to get up and come after him.
In a statement to police, though, Greensmyth had said he kicked Kennedy twice in the back and that Kennedy was doing “nothing” on the ground.
Judge Bryce Dyer said both Kennedy’s and Greensmyth’s testimony had “limited credibility” when it came to the initial punch and that it was impossible to tell whether Greensmyth had sucker-punched Kennedy or hit him in self-defence.
But Dryer wasn’t convinced by Greensmyth’s explanation of the follow-up kicks.
“He did not need to kick Kennedy at all,” Dryer said. “He could have fled the scene (and did so) without impediment and more quickly than he did.”
Dryer also didn’t buy Greensmyth’s claim that he hadn’t been angered by Kennedy’s comments about his marriage.
“His resistance to the suggestion that he might have been at least somewhat angered, as any ordinary person surely would have been, by insults like his being a ‘pussy-whipped bitch’ makes his testimony on this point seem not only unlikely but unbelievable,” Dryer said.
Greensmyth had been charged with assault causing bodily harm. Dryer found him guilty of the lesser charge of common assault.
Greensmyth was handed a one-year conditional sentence. Among the conditions were 50 hours of community work, mandatory anger-management counselling and an order not to have any contact with Kennedy or his wife.
