The man charged with attacking a B.C. Crown prosecutor a block from Vancouver Provincial Court has been found guilty of assault causing bodily harm and assault.
Kenyon Thomas Lavallee stood quietly in a corner of the prisoner’s dock in one of the courthouse’s main courtrooms as Judge Daniel Loucks read his decision via video July 22.
The prosecutor, whose name is covered by a publication ban, testified in May that the Feb. 2 attack on her was a block from the courthouse as she walked to work.
She said the attack came out of nowhere and left her with numbness in her face.
She was walking with a colleague and a security guard from the courthouse’s secure walk program.
“That part of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver can be unpredictable and unsafe,” Loucks said.
The prosecutor said she saw the male and he saw her as she walked east on Cordova Street toward the courthouse at 222 Main St.
“He charged at me and he swung his closed fist into my face,” she testified.
“I was stunned,” she said. “I put my hand to my face and I was bleeding quite heavily. There was blood coming from my face.”
Loucks said the assailant ran from the first scene where the prosecutor lay crumpled on the ground.
Turning onto Columbia Street, Loucks said the man came across another woman.
“He jumped toward her and began yelling incoherently,” Loucks said. “He also punched her multiple times in the head.”
That victim began yelling and the man was soon arrested. Loucks said the second victim identified the arrested man as the one who assaulted her.
The judge said the defence had conceded Lavallee was the assailant in the second incident.
Loucks said the evidence of the prosecutor, the colleague and the security guard differed; however, it was the man’s clothing which made the difference in the conviction.
Loucks said the clothing captured in the video of the attack on the prosecutor was the same as that caught in the video of the second attack.
“I am satisfied the person in all three videos is Mr. Lavallee,” Loucks said.
The case now moves forward for the setting of a date for sentencing submissions.
