An assay lab worker in North Vancouver who narrowly missed killing his boss after attacking him with a utility knife has been sent to jail for 3* years by a B.C. Supreme Court judge.
Kua Yung Chao, 55, attacked his boss Angelus Yuen at ALS Labs on Dollarton Highway by slashing him across the neck and stabbing him in chest with the blade after learning he was going to be temporarily laid off.
Chao snapped on Jan. 12 last year, attacking his boss during a meeting where managers were explaining the 13-week layoff to a group of about 20 employees.
Yuen had to be rushed into emergency surgery after losing significant amounts of blood from cuts to his cartorid artery and jugular vein.
In sentencing Chao on June 24, Justice Christopher Grauer called it "sheer luck" that Yuen had not been killed.
Yuen's wallet, which was in his shirt pocket, essentially stopped the blade wielded by Chao from plunging into his heart.
Grauer called Chao's actions a "vicious and life-threatening attack" on a victim "who was only trying to help at the time."
He added Chao's attack was also "planned and deliberate."
In his statement to police, Chao said he was angry at Yuen, who he blamed for undermining him at work and for picking Chao to be laid off instead of less senior employees.
When he got the call about the layoffs -- the day before the attack -- Chao changed the blade on the utility knife he was in the habit of carrying for work, noted Grauer.
Chao felt he was being victimized and "he planned to take it out on (Yuen) with the knife," said Grauer.
"I hated him so much my mind went blank," Chao told police.
At a preliminary hearing held last May, Yuen testified that Chao was in a room with about 20 other laid-off employees, when he "just lunged across the table and slashed me."
"I felt a cut," said Yuen. "I saw he was holding a knife that actually had the blade out. He was slashing at me again."
Yuen was in hospital for three days after the attack and off work for two months, said Crown counsel David Simpkin. Simpkin said Yuen still doesn't have full mobility in his neck and arm and is often in pain from nerve damage. "For the rest of his life there are things he won't be able to do," said Simpkin.
Simpkin added Yuen was not the person who made the decision to lay off Chao. Most of the other workers who were temporarily laid off were back at work in about a month, he noted.
Defence lawyer Michael Ranspot called Chao a "psychologically vulnerable man," noting his difficult childhood -- when he was abandoned on the streets of Laos at five years old -- made him unable to deal with significant stress in his life.
Ranspot said Chao had separated from his wife, had limited fluency in English, and was living socially isolated in a hotel in Chinatown at the time of the attack.
"All he had left in terms of his security was his job," said Ranspot.
He added a psychologist's report stated Chao's risk for future violence is "very low."
Before he was sentenced, Chao apologized for his actions, through a Cantonese interpreter. "I would like to say to you that I am very sorry," he told the judge. "I did something wrong. And I would like to say sorry to Mr. Yuen."
But Grauer said the violent attack that "society cannot be seen to condone" called for jail time. He sentenced Chao to four years in jail, with credit for time already spent in custody.
