Eden Gidharry was sentenced for slashing the manager, Steven Brain, with the swords and cutting his laptop in half, after claiming that Brain had put a spell on him and was “in his head all night.”
Gidharry pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but Justice Jane Kelly rejected that and found him guilty of the more serious charge of attempted murder, pointing to threatening statements he made and the “terrifying” nature of the attack.
“Mr. Brain was on the other side of the computer at the time. It would have been terrifying,” Justice Kelly wrote in the judgment.
In the video, obtained by CTV News from the Toronto Superior Court, Gidharry can be seen walking towards the company’s headquarters on Jethro Road on a rainy day in March 2020.
As he approaches, it’s clear he is armed with samurai swords. The video shows he is stopped briefly at a gate before cutting through the mechanism with one of the swords, and then raising them on both sides and walking steadily forward into the facility.
An alarm sounds and employees start to leave the building in a panic. Another video shows Gidharry stalking through the factory floor on his way to meet Brain.
“Using the swords, Mr. Gidharry slashed Mr. Brain, causing significant injuries to the area of his right underarm and his right leg. Mr. Gidharry also swung the sword causing the laptop screen of Mr. Brain’s computer to be split in two,” Justice Kelly wrote.
When police arrived, he put the swords down. In a statement to police, “Mr. Gidharry said, amongst other things, that he had to kill Mr. Brain due to a “spell/curse” and that this suggestion had come to him while he was meditating,” the justice wrote.
The court heard that in the days before the attack, Gidharry attended his manager’s office, distraught, angry and unsettled. He believed other employees were asking about his personal life. The meetings appeared to resolve the problem, but Gidharry returned.
Gidharry refused to answer questions to diagnose a possible mental illness, but an assessment concluded there was no basis for finding him not criminally responsible.
He apologized in court, saying, “It was never my intent to cause the family any grief or harm to Mr. Brain… it was just a bad time for me. For what it’s worth, I am sorry for it.”
Following the attack, Brain said he could not work at the company anymore, with the court hearing in victim impact statements that the attack had forever changed him and his family.
“Every morning I wake up with these scars on my body and mind. This is not who I was before Mar. 20, 2020. That person is gone forever,” Brain said in his victim impact statement.
A spokesperson for the bakery said the company was trying to move forward after the attack.
Gidharry, 38, is a permanent resident with no criminal record and no history of drug abuse, the judge said.
After the 17-year sentence he is likely to be deported, she said.
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