Natsis loses appeal, ending lengthy battle over fatality
Ontario dentist begins 5-year prison term
OTTAWA • Pembroke dentist Christy Natsis began serving her five-year prison term Monday, more than seven years after she killed a father of three while driving drunk.
Natsis was convicted of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death in the March 31, 2011, head-on collision that killed 50-year-old Bryan Casey on Highway 17 near Arnprior, Ont.
In a decision released Monday, Ontario’s Court of Appeal rejected her appeal, bringing to an end one of the longest drunk-driving cases in Canadian history. The trial continued on and off for 55 days over a threeyear period, beginning in 2012 and ending with her November 2015 sentencing.
For Casey’s widow, LeeEllen Carroll, and their children, the appeal added another two-and-a-half-year wait for justice.
“Seven years ago we lost Bryan to a drunk driver. That is half the life of our youngest child — a lifetime, really, to him,” Carroll said in prepared statement she read outside the Ottawa Court House on Monday.
“Nothing about that night has changed and we’re relived to see justice being done.”
Natsis had surrendered herself to police Sunday night, on the eve of the Appeals Court decision, as required by her bail conditions.
Both Natsis and Casey had been drinking the night of the crash, but the court found it was her SUV that crossed the centre line and crashed into Casey’s oncoming pickup truck. Casey braked before the collision. Natsis did not.
Lawyers for Natsis appealed the conviction, arguing that an expert witness, OPP Const. Shawn Kelly, was biased in his evidence.
They also argued his evidence should have been excluded because he didn’t preserve and disclose to the defence his draft reports.
Kelly, a technical collision investigator, collected evidence, took photographs and made measurements at the scene, then later examined both vehicles after they were towed away.
At the trial, Kelly testified that he concluded that Natsis had been the one to cross the centre line and cause the collision. Natsis’s defence argued that it was Casey who had swerved into her lane.
At the appeal hearing in Toronto last November, Natsis’s lawyer, Marie Henein, argued that Kelly viewed himself as “part of the team” for the Crown.
“The lack of objectivity is concerning … he can’t be relied on,” Henein told the court.
But Appeals Court Judge Gladys Pardu didn’t agree, writing in Monday’s decision: “I see no basis to interfere with the trial judge’s conclusions regarding the admissibility of Kelly’s evidence.”
The trial judge at the time noted “there was a realistic concern that Kelly might be biased” but that the photographs and scientific evidence he presented could not be disputed.
The Appeals Court did, however, agree that Kelly’s final report, which he submitted to his superior for review, should have been dis- closed to the defence. The report contained a number of errors that “cast doubt on the author’s competence, and the failure of a more senior accident investigator to catch the errors cast doubt on his competence,” Pardu wrote.
Although the failure to disclose violated Natsis’s Charter rights, Pardu ruled she was “not satisfied, however, that this could possibly affect the reliability of the resultant decision or the fairness of the trial process.”
In her statement to reporters, Carroll thanked the first responders who tried to save Casey’s life as well as the police, the Crown and Mothers Against Drunk Driving for their support during the lengthy trial.
“The pain inflicted on us continues to have a huge impact,” she said.
“Thank you to the friends and strangers who’ve allowed me to pull them a little bit closer. To those who’ve drifted away, I’m sorry my grief and loss were too much for you to handle, but I want to thank you for the love you give and for the pain you take away.”
Carroll said she plans to work with attorneys general to ensure “other Canadians do not have to experience the repeated revictimization as we have.”
“We have weathered the storm for seven years now. It’s time to let our children be children and to live out Bryan’s legacy.”
Natsis will be eligible for parole after serving a third of her five-year sentence.