A Burnaby man charged in a hit-and-run that damaged three vehicles in Vancouver didn’t get away with abandoning his car near the scene and then reporting it stolen, according to a B.C. provincial court ruling this month.
Chi Wai Chan was charged under the Motor Vehicle Act for hit and run and giving false information to police in relation to the incident on March 31, 2019.
At 3:40 a.m. on that day, a resident in the 2700 block of Franklin Street reported hearing a loud crash, according to the ruling.
“They reported that they had observed a black vehicle which struck a parked BMW and the black vehicle fled the scene. They reported that the BMW suffered extensive damage,” the ruling states.
Officers responding to the call also found a Honda Accord just around the corner, in the 200 block of Slocan Street, with “extensive damage.”
Later that night, police got a call from Chan, the Accord’s owner, saying his car keys and car had been stolen while he was at a restaurant in the area.
Investigators went on to find two more damaged vehicles nearby, and concluded the Accord had hit a total of three vehicles.
Using cellphone records, police then dismantled Chan’s story about his car having been stolen.
A call log and cell-tower data from March 30 and 31, 2019 showed Chan’s phone – the one he had used to report his Accord “stolen” – placed his phone at the scene of the hit-and-run at the time of the collision.
“How did his phone get from the stolen vehicle to Mr. Chan later for him to make the call to police?” asked Judicial Justice David Schwartz in his ruling. “This is inconsistent with logic and experience applied to the evidence or the absence of evidence and is not based on speculation. The only reasonable inference from all the evidence is that Mr. Chan was himself at the scene of the hit-and-run on Franklin Street, abandoned his vehicle and left the area to return to Burnaby near where he lives and later phoned to report his vehicle stolen in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the collisions he caused.”
Schwartz upheld the two tickets.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
Email [email protected]
