‘This was no accident,’ Crown tells crash trial
Deinsberg St-Hilaire’s “nodding off” at the wheel in the seconds before the crash that killed Kerry Nevin does not amount to criminal liability, his lawyer argued at the close of his dangerous driving trial.
Defence lawyer Eric Granger made his final case to Justice Catherine Aitken on Tuesday, saying the Crown showed “limited evidence” of a dangerous pattern of driving leading up to the June 28, 2015, early morning collision on Leitrim Road, and it did not go beyond a “momentary lapse in attention” when St-Hilaire’s truck drifted into the shoulder and fatally struck Nevin on his bicycle.
“This was no accident,” prosecutor Lisa Miles said as the Crown made its closing arguments Monday. “It was the driver that caused this crash.”
His “utter failure” to foresee the risks of getting behind the wheel at 4:45 a.m. — after being up for the previous 22 hours, driving home from his brother’s wedding and after-party — should make St-Hilaire guilty of dangerous driving causing death, the Crown said.
After causing the fatal crash, St-Hilaire “did not stop to call for help, to offer assistance, to check on the fate of the man he had struck when he drove on the shoulder of the roadway,” prosecutors said, and he should be guilty of failing to stop at the scene.
Granger countered the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that St-Hilaire either knew he had struck somebody or had been “wilfully blind” to the collision.
St-Hilaire testified in his own defence after pleading not guilty to both counts. He entered a guilty plea on arraignment to a related charge of obstructing police.
The Crown detailed the evidence that led to that charge in explaining St-Hilaire’s motivation for leaving the scene of the crash, suggesting he had been drinking more than the single glass of wine he claimed in testimony he had consumed.
Miles told the judge there was evidence of St-Hilaire’s truck weaving in traffic camera footage captured just before 6 a.m., showing he was awake and correcting his “erratic” driving in the seconds before the crash. There was no sign of brake lights.
St-Hilaire testified he wasn’t tired when he got behind the wheel early that morning, retrieving his truck in Barrhaven following a wedding after-party at his mother’s house, and he had “inexplicably” fallen asleep when was awakened by a loud bang, and realized he was driving about a metre into the paved shoulder.
Crown expert Adam Cybanski measured the truck’s speed from traffic camera footage taken before the crash at 80 km/h — in a 50 km/h zone — and measured the truck as it took a sharp left turn after the crash from Leitrim onto Albion Road, accelerating to nearly 110 km/h in the 100 metres captured on camera.
Witness Alison Reaume testified she saw St-Hilaire run a red light, fishtailing as he drove north on Albion with a “terrified” look on his face.
St-Hilaire claimed in his testimony witnesses were mistaken in what Miles called a “recurring theme ... if the evidence doesn’t fit then these people are mistaken.”
St-Hilaire claimed mechanic Shawn Nadeau was also mistaken when he was called to testify about what St-Hilaire had told him on July 7, 2015, after Nadeau grew suspicious the white Ford F-250 he just fixed was the one police were looking for in connection with the fatal crash. He claimed Nadeau was mistaken when he testified St-Hilaire told him he had been drinking the night before, that he was tired that morning and that he felt “pressured” by his brother to drive home.
Miles implored the judge to accept the evidence from experts and credible witnesses over StHilaire’s “self-serving ” testimony.
“His carefully scripted testimony rang false,” Miles said.
Granger said St-Hilaire would have no obligation to report the collision if he believed he had simply struck a mailbox that day, as he had testified.
“Mailboxes don’t have big steel frames that crumple under a truck,” Crown attorney Julian Daller countered. “Hitting a mailbox doesn’t make you run a red light.”