A limo bus driver who bear-sprayed a group of drunk passengers after taking them on a terrifying ride during a birthday party celebration gone “badly wrong” in North Vancouver has had convictions for dangerous driving and assault with a weapon upheld by a B.C. Supreme Court Justice.
The charges against Hardyal Dhanoa, 61, stemmed from the night of March 3, 2013, when he picked up a group of drunk young adults in downtown Vancouver to drive them home to the North Shore.
But when the party bus got to Deep Cove, “things went badly wrong” noted B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Grauer.
One passenger, who was leaving the bus at Lima Road to get more booze, insulted Dhanoa with an ethnic slur. Dhanoa demanded the rest of the group get off the bus too, but they refused.
Dhanoa then lurched the bus forward several times and sped off up Mount Seymour Parkway, swerving both within his own lane – striking a curb and median – and into the oncoming lane of traffic.
One of the passengers on the bus described the journey on the careening bus as “terrifying” during the trial, adding “we were all in fear for our lives.”
Two of the young men on the bus then tried to get at the driver – one of them launching himself through a partition that separated Dhanoa from the passengers while the other tried to grab him. During the altercation, Dhanoa sprayed bear mace at the passengers. The limo eventually came to a stop after hitting a lamppost.
During the trial in North Vancouver provincial court, Dhanoa told Judge Joanne Challenger the passengers had robbed him, taken his phone and that the passengers had produced the bear spray.
But the judge didn’t believe him, describing his version of events as “fabricated, exaggerated and embellished.”
The judge noted Dhanoa could have hit the alarm button and called police to help with his unruly passengers. Instead, she said, he chose to speed away and swerve the bus on purpose after losing his temper.
In those circumstances, the passengers were entitled to use force to bring the bus under control, she said.
Dhanoa appealed his convictions, saying the judge hadn’t properly assessed the credibility of the witnesses or the issue of self defence.
But Grauer rejected that, upholding the convictions.
