A 39-year-old man charged with assault after a road rage incident in Prince George pleaded guilty Oct. 17 to the lesser and included charge of causing a disturbance by fighting.
Christopher John Fagan also pleaded guilty to breach of a post-arrest undertaking, after he contacted the man he struck.
Provincial Court Judge Martin Nadon agreed with Fagan’s defence lawyer, Jon Duncan, and sentenced him to a conditional discharge and one-year probation. If Fagan serves the next year without incident, his record will not include the incident.
Crown had sought a suspended sentence, because Fagan had received discharges in 2009 and 2016.
Court heard that Fagan, while driving his wife’s vehicle on March 26, 2024, and inadvertently contacted another vehicle while passing too closely. Fagan and the other driver swore at each other and exited their vehicles. Fagan swung at the other man, struck him in the face and knocked his eyeglasses off.
Fagan left the scene shortly after the altercation, but was eventually arrested and released with conditions, including not to contact the other man.
Fagan found the other man’s Facebook account and contacted him by Messenger on March 31, 2024. He unsuccessfully proposed they settle the dispute without going to court.
“This was out of character for him,” Nadon said. “He’s apparently a gentleman who is involved in the community, he’s involved in his family, he’s involved in a [road maintenance and construction] business. He has numerous employees and he appears, from all of the information I have, to be well respected in that role.”
