A drunk driver whose road assault through Richmond, Vancouver and Burnaby caused nearly $35,000 in damage, will not serve time in jail for the Jan. 8 crime spree captured by his own dashcam.
Siu Wei Leung, 62, was charged with dangerous driving, impaired driving, and failing to stop at the scene of an accident.
The damning video was released by Burnaby RCMP last week in an effort to warn against driving impaired over the holidays.
“We definitely thought he’d get a bit of jail time,” said Mark Bailey, whose Burnaby property suffered water damage after the driver slammed into a fire hydrant, “thinking of what could have happened if he hadn’t been stopped.”
Leung received a one-year driving ban, a $1,000 fine and six months’ probation after pleading guilty to impaired driving on Aug. 23. The two other charges were stayed.
“It just seems so much lower than he should have gotten because of the amount of damage he did that night,” Bailey told Global News Sunday.
Jail time is not the norm on a first conviction for an impaired driving offence, according to criminal lawyer Kyla Lee, who said a one-year driving ban, $1,000 fine and an automatic criminal record is the mandatory minimum sentence.
“In this case, the sentence is tough because it includes the addition of a six-month period of probation,” Lee told Global News.
Leung must abide by a number of court-ordered conditions, including completing 50 hours of community work service.
The dashcam evidence from his Cadillac Escalade was “overwhelming,” said Lee. “It’s probably among the worst dashcam that I’ve seen.”
The trail of destruction captured on video showed the SUV repeatedly crossing over the centre line towards oncoming traffic, dodging pedestrians, narrowly missing other vehicles, driving into and through a ditch, running a red light, and striking parked vehicles and the fire hydrant – which sent water gushing into homes.
“He hit the fire hydrant and just kept trying to drive,” Bailey said. “If there’d been any people out there, he could have easily killed someone.”
After causing the flooding, Leung drove on for almost one kilometre before blowing a stop sign and crashing into another near Gilley Avenue.
When RCMP caught up to him, his SUV was battered and missing a tire.
Police said he caused an estimated $28,000 in flooding damage and more than $6,600 in damage to City of Burnaby property.
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Bailey’s basement sustained about $3,000 in flood damage. Another neighbour’s home suffered more than $10,000 in damage when their yard and tenant’s suite were flooded.
“There was a small river going down each side of our house. It took out our walkway,” Bailey told Global News.
Lee said ICBC will attempt to recoup those costs from Leung.
“Because of the number of collisions in this case and the significant amount of damage that came from the driving, the insurance-related consequences for this individual are going to be massive,” she said.
Court documents list Leung’s address as an upscale home in Burnaby’s Buckingham Heights neighbourhood, assessed at $2.25 million in 2020.
A middle-aged man who answered the door Sunday declined comment when he was shown a copy of Leung’s probation order.
A younger man then came to the door and claimed he knew nothing about Leung or the drunk-driving charge.
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