Burnaby man who attacked father with hammer gets one day in jail
Credit to Author: Keith Fraser| Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2019 22:52:35 +0000
Citing the “unique” circumstances in the case, a judge has sentenced a Burnaby man who attacked his father with a hammer to one day in jail and three years of probation.
In September, a B.C. Supreme Court jury found Robert Alan Carlson, 52, guilty of the June 2017 aggravated assault of his father, Arne Carlson, 76.
The trial heard that in the weeks leading up to the incident, tensions were running high in the Carlson household.
A day after a dispute over the repair of a light in the family home on Arbor Street, where Carlson lived with his parents, the father was watching a baseball game on TV when his son came into the room and asked what his father was going to do about an invoice he had prepared for the repair work.
The father was upset that his son, who had been living in the family home since 2005, had presented a bill to him since he had been supporting him for years and felt that the move lacked “class”.
When Carlson left the room, the father got up to open the front door to get some fresh air and came upon Carlson in the vestibule. Carlson was holding a hammer cocked over his head.
Carlson pushed his father with one hand, causing the elderly man to stumble backward across the living room and into his chair.
Carlson then hit him twice with the hammer, once on the back of the head as the father rose from his chair, and then a glancing blow as the father held up his hands to protect himself.
The two men then wrestled for the hammer, with the father asking his son, “Why are you doing this? What did I do to you?”
Robert Carlson replied: “I hate you. I hate you. You ruined my life.”
The father called out to his wife to call the police, and was then pummelled by Carlson in the face and choked.
When police arrived, the father was taken to hospital with a head wound requiring stitches, a fractured nose, a split lip that required stitches, and two black eyes.
Carlson claimed he was acting in self-defence and the injuries were accidental.
The accused, who graduated from the UBC engineering school and worked for a short time as an engineer, had had a good relationship with his parents until 2014 when he started to become paranoid.
Carlson began to believe his father was poisoning him, so he stopped eating with his parents, and then stopped drinking tap water because he thought the water system was poisoned.
In her sentencing, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray said that due to the unusual circumstances of the case, including Carlson’s mental health issues, rehabilitation was a paramount principle.
“While the offence itself is extremely serious, it is clear that Mr. Carlson’s mental issues are at the root of his behaviour.”
The judge ordered Carlson, who got credit for more than 200 days of pre-sentence custody, serve one day in jail and three years probation. The probation conditions include that he have no contact with his parents unless the parents approve of a meeting and that he get counselling for his mental health problems.