A man who admitted to assaulting a tourist on Vancouver’s seawall last year has received a 16-month conditional sentence to be served in the community, followed by 12 months of probation.
On Nov. 10, Peterhans Nungu, 35, pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in the April 15, 2025 attack on a woman visiting from Toronto.
Earlier this year, counsel for Nungu argued his client should be found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.
According to an Agreed Statement of Facts read in provincial court in June, the complainant, who posted about the incident in a series of TikTok videos, was walking back from Stanley Park to her hotel along the Coal Harbour seawall shortly after midnight, when a stranger approached and tried speaking to her.
The unknown man was the accused, Peterhans Nungu, said prosecutor Tyler MacLean.
Court heard the complainant was not comfortable speaking with Nungu, and did not respond.
“Nungu took offence and started to follow (her),” MacLean told the court. “Nungu began berating (her) and calling her names like bitch and slut.”
The complainant kept walking away from Nungu, who approached her from behind and threw her down to the ground.
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She got up and walked away from Nungu as fast as she could, court heard, but he kept following her and yelling at her.
When the complainant started running and tried to call 911, Nungu caught up with her, grabbed her again, and threw her phone to the sidewalk, “smashing it and rendering it inoperable.”
Nungu, MacLean told the court, then grabbed the woman and threw her back on the ground.
“While (she) was on the ground, Nungu punched her with closed fists multiple times in the head and the face,” according to the Agreed Statement of Facts. “(The complainant) was screaming for help while trying to push and kick Nungu away.”
The woman managed to get up and run a short distance towards her hotel, court heard, before Nungu caught up with her and threw her hard onto the ground.
“(She) fell…and hit her head on a concrete planter,” said MacLean.
The complainant briefly lost consciousness and awoke to Mr. Nungu “tearing at her clothes”.
Court heard she continued screaming and trying to fight off Nungu until bystanders intervened, pulling him off and holding him until police arrived.
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Once arrested, police noted there was blood on Nungu’s clothing.
According to the Agreed Statement of Facts, the complainant was taken to hospital and treated for several “immediately visible” injuries – including a golf ball-sized bruise on her upper right forehead, a golf ball-sized bump on her left cheek, lacerations to her nose and eyebrow, and cuts on her hands.
In the days following the assault, the complainant’s eye had swollen shut, Crown told the court.
While in custody, court heard Nungu was seen talking gibberish for about four minutes before police entered the interview room.
Once police arrived, Nungu provided “a coherent statement and admitted to police that he assaulted (the complainant) in the manner she alleged,” according to the Agreed Statement of Facts.
Nungu has apologized for his actions on April 15, 2025 and said he’s doing much better.
“I’m very sorry,” Nungu told Global News outside court on June 16. “That will never happen again.”
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