A 21-year-old man apologized inside Vancouver courts on Tuesday for decking a Burnaby bus driver in the head last year.
Del Louie has pleaded guilty to assaulting the driver, Charles Dixon, at Edmunds Station on Feb. 15, 2011 and said he was sorry during a sentencing hearing. However, the actual sentencing was pushed back to April.
Last year, Louie tried to get in the back doors of the stopped bus but Dixon repeatedly told him to get in the front line. Louie ran up behind Dixon and punched him in the face breaking his orbital bone in two places.
"I'd like Mr. Dixon to know that I am truly sorry," Louie told media outside the courtroom.
Dixon has been assaulted 14 times in his 25-year career as a driver and said while he has accepted the apology, he wants justice served.
"There has to be jail time," Dixon said. "I've been off my job for an entire year, and if he gets less than the time I've been off than it is a disgrace."
Coast Mountain co-workers showed up at Vancouver provincial court in support of the driver and in the hopes of a stiff sentence.
"Too many drivers are getting assaulted too often and nothing is happening in courts," said co-worker Paul Hudson. "It's time to start having that change… and make sure a sentence actually gets handed down today."
Don MacLeod, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 111, says he supports the nine-to-12-month sentence that Crown prosecutors are pushing for.
"Del Louie has twice assaulted bus drivers simply doing their jobs – that's totally unacceptable and his previous conviction did not change his behaviour at all," MacLeod said in a release.
Metro transit employees said there have been 140 assaults against drivers since Louie's previous court date last year.
