’Waves of emotion’ for victim’s family
Crown seeking over four years
Emily Sheane’s father and boyfriend were worried when the 25-year-old was late getting home from work last March 9.
So they hopped in the car and retraced the route she would have taken from her job at Joe Fortes in Vancouver’s West End to her home in Burnaby.
What they came upon was devastating — emergency workers and Sheane’s smashedup Corolla at the intersection of Moscrop Street and Willingdon Avenue, just five minutes from her home.
The young woman was dead, after a speeding Range Rover driven by longtime United Nations gang member Ibrahim Ali ran a red light and struck the driver’s side of her car.
Ali has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and failure to stop at an accident. His sentencing hearing started Thursday at Vancouver Provincial Court.
Crown Jonas Dow told Judge Harbans Dhillon that Ali should be sentenced to between four and four-and-a-half years in jail.
He described the horror of Sheane’s dad and longtime boyfriend Andrew arriving at the accident scene.
Dow read from victim impact statements prepared by Sheane’s family and friends, who packed the gallery of Courtroom 307, hugging and weeping throughout the afternoon.
Sheane’s mother Judy said: “It’s every parent’s nightmare to have your daughter say she’s on her way home and she doesn’t show up.”
Sheane’s sister Jenny Berger said she has been overcome for months with “waves of emotion and pain, bringing with it crippling anxiety.”
Outside court, Berger said she feels let down by the sentence being proposed for Ali, who has a lengthy criminal history.
Ali’s lawyer Scott Wright told Dhillon that a three-year sentence would be more appropriate for Ali, whose life was “spiralling out of control” in the months before the fatal collision. Ali lost his grandfather in January 2016, who “was the closest there was to a father figure in his life,” Wright said.
Neither Dow nor Wright mentioned Ali’s link to the notorious gang that was documented in an earlier trial.
Between 2007, when Ali was still a teen, and 2012 he had 20 convictions, Dow said, including for assault, uttering threats, obstructing a peace officer, trafficking, break and enter, possession of a firearm and robbery.
Ali’s conduct after the accident was an aggravating factor, Dow said.
Both Ali and his passenger Nicole Vrban ran off as passersby tried to help Sheane.
They called a taxi, then hid out at a Burnaby motel until they got another vehicle. When the duo were arrested in Creston, Ali lied about who he was.
Ali, 26, wiped his eyes with his head down throughout the submissions. The sentencing hearing was adjourned to Dec. 21.