Man who shot woman acquitted of assault

A judge says he could not conclusively determine whether a 61-year-old man intended to cause bodily harm to his ex-girlfriend when he shot her with a handgun, an incident in which the bullet passed through both of the woman’s breast implants nearly seven years ago.

Eileen Likness had testified that the implants, which took the brunt of the damage from the bullet fired from a 9-millimetre Barretta at Okotoks on Jan. 2, 2006, likely saved her life.

In acquitting Fernando (Frank) Chora on Wednesday of assault with a weapon and aggravated assault, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Craig Jones said even though he was “unable to wholly accept Chora’s testimony regarding his lack of attempt to apply force to Ms. Likness,” the entire evidence leaves him with reasonable doubt in that regard.

Jones, however, convicted Chora of four of the six charges he faced. He was guilty of possessing a restricted loaded weapon, possessing the weapon while prohibited by a court order, as well as breaking into the home of a senior couple, his former landlords near Vulcan, and confining them early the next morning.

“At the end of the day, it’s an accidental shooting,” defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli said outside court.

Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen had argued Chora intentionally shot the woman and that he told police he “had lost control of himself.”

Likness had testified the bullet went through the skin on her right forearm, went through each breast implant while grazing her chest, then exited through her left arm. She said the implants likely saved her, but were destroyed.

The woman said the incident occurred after she and Chora had been driving around the countryside south of Calgary for several hours and she got frustrated and wanted to go back to Calgary. She had stopped on the street to drop him off.

She said Chora exited the car and was some four to five metres away when the shot was fired, but she did not actually see him pull the trigger.