Real estate agent guilty in knife attack

The Ottawa real estate agent who attacked his daughter and wife with a butcher knife in May did so seconds after he saw an online photograph of his eldest daughter posing with a man she knew from her university Glee club.

The strict father had forbidden his children to have any presence on the Internet and was so controlling that he monitored their mobile phones, computers and bank accounts. He didn’t allow the three children — aged 16 to 20 — to date anyone or post online photos of themselves, let alone have a Facebook account.

The father, who cries himself to sleep most nights at the Innes Road jail, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of aggravated assault in a plea bargain with the Crown that spared him prosecution on the more severe charges of attempted murder.

Court heard that right after he saw his eldest daughter’s picture on the Internet, he went to the kitchen and returned with a butcher knife.

May 3 of this year was a big day for the family. His wife and daughter had just returned from his daughter’s new apartment. The father had never agreed that his eldest daughter, 20, could move out. And when she said her father no longer controlled her life, he said that in fact said he did and slapped her face.

He then grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and slashed his daughter in the shoulder. When she tried to grab it to stop the attack, her right pinky finger was severed and her ring finger was severed.

When the attacker’s wife yelled for her daughter to call 911, drawing her husband’s attention, he man pushed his wife and slashed her.

His wife suffered severe defensive wounds to both hands and her skull.

Their daughter ran to the mud room, barricaded herself and called 911.

Her mother fled to the basement and tried to call 911.

Both then ran from their house and hid in a nearby ditch, then ran to their neighbours’ house for help. The neighbours tried to stop the bleeding until paramedics arrived.

When the Ottawa police arrived, they shouted for the real estate agent to open the front door. He did so, then crawled out to the front porch where he was arrested.

Police officers found the daughter’s severed finger and packed it in ice. The mother and daughter both underwent lengthy surgeries and the daughter’s finger was reattached.

The Crown prosecutor in the case requested and was granted a ban on publishing the names of the accused and his family so the victims wouldn’t be “revictimized.”

He told court that although media reports at the time described the attacks as a family “honour crime”, nothing in the case file supports that theory.

No date has been scheduled for sentencing and the father remains in custody.