VANCOUVER — 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, 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.”
Carlson later pushed his father backward and hit him twice with the hammer, once on the back of the head.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Murray said that due to the circumstances of the case, including Carlson’s mental health issues, rehabilitation was a paramount principle.
She ordered Carlson, who received credit for more than 200 days of pre-sentence custody, to serve one more day in jail. He is to have no contact with his parents without their permission and receive mental-health counselling.
