A 43-year-old Surrey woman has pleaded guilty to three of four criminal charges laid after a violent confrontation with a mother and her three children aboard a transit bus in Langley on May 20.
Leah Susan MacKay appeared in Surrey Provincial Court on Wednesday (Aug. 13) afternoon to plead guilty to one count of assault, one count of assault with a weapon and one count of uttering threats.
An additional charge of assault with a weapon was stayed by the Crown prosecutor.
MacKay has been in jail since the incident, part of which was captured on video posted online.
She was sentenced to time served, ordered to pay a $100 victim surcharge and given two years of probation.
Langley RCMP said the confrontation occurred when MacKay got into an argument with the the bus driver over nonpayment of her fare and the mother objected to her swearing.
It was shortly after 10 a.m.
There were several children on the bus in addition to the mother’s own three children.
“The woman [MacKay] was using profane language causing the complainant [the mother] along with other passengers to ask her to stop swearing,” a written RCMP statement said.
The police report said MacKay then threatened to kill the mother and her children before throwing a drink at the youngest child, a boy who was less than one year old.
The two women got into a brief physical fight, captured on a video later posted to YouTube by another passenger.
Both women then exited the bus, MacKay escorted by the driver.
The mother began walking toward the Willowbrook Shopping Centre with her children.
Police said MacKay ran after the mother and produced a knife, knocked over the complainant’s four-year-old daughter and kicked her other two-year-old daughter in the back.
She was arrested 20 minutes later at her residence after a Surrey RCMP officer recognized the broadcast description as someone he had dealt with in the past.
The identity of the mother is protected by a court-ordered ban on publication.
Several postings of the YouTube video of the fight have recorded more than 400,000 views.
