Briefly: Hong Xu was banned for driving for five years and fined $2,000 for driving without due care and attention in August 2022. Her SUV struck and killed two people at a wedding party in West Vancouver and injured seven others.
The injured and relatives of the dead cannot sue, due to the NDP’s May 2021 move to no-fault auto insurance.
Bob Mackin
The driver of the SUV that struck and killed two people and injured seven others at a West Vancouver wedding party more than two years ago was banned from driving for five years.
In North Vancouver Provincial Court on Sept. 17, Hong Xu, 66, was also fined $2,000 for driving without due care and attention. Investigators determined she accidentally stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake, so she was charged under the Motor Vehicle Act.
North Vancouver Provincial Court (B.C. Courthouse Libraries)
Because Xu avoided being charged under the Criminal Code, victims and relatives of the deceased cannot file a civil lawsuit due to the NDP government’s move to a no-fault insurance system in May 2021.
Judge Rita Bowry agreed to the joint sentencing proposal from Crown and defence lawyers, which also includes a $300 maximum victim fine surcharge.
Bowry cautioned that the sentence “is not, nor should it be, a reflection of the value of the lives lost or injured and nothing I say or do can truly capture the magnitude of the loss or restore families to the way they were before the tragic events of Aug. 20, 2022.”
The judge said it was in Xu’s favour that she pleaded guilty early in the proceedings and spared the victims and witnesses a “long and harrowing trial.”
“The driving ban also sends a message to the public that driving is not a right but a privilege,” Bowry said.
She said that Xu stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake near her Keith Road and Keith Place residence, sending her Range Rover SUV to collide with two stone pillars before it struck several victims at a wedding party and stopped on top of an ornamental courtyard fountain.
Annie Kong, 67, and Lieu Nguyen, 62, died. The seven other victims ranged in age from a year-old infant to someone in their mid-70s.
Bowry said Xu, a Canadian citizen, has no criminal record and a modest driving record, but had voluntarily stopped driving.
A day earlier, Xu, who has dyed blonde, shoulder length hair, apologized in Mandarin, through an English translator, that she was “heartbroken for the misery” she caused.
“She will always face the stigma of the unmeasurable harm done,” Bowry said.
“She has become withdrawn and socially avoided since the accident. She accepts without hesitation whatever the court decision will be and does not ask for any accommodation.”
Bowry said that Xu had instructed her lawyer, Ian Donaldson, “to make amends with those involved,” but did not specify any dollar amount offered to the victims’ families.
Outside the court, Kong’s daughter, Joanna Moy, said Xu’s sentence was unjust.
“She should’ve gotten at least a lifetime drivers licence ban,” May said.
At the time of the incident, Xu was involved with Westgem Communities Development Ltd., a company touting a proposal to build the 20-acre, N2W mixed use development near the Richmond Olympic Oval.
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