Father apologizes to children for crash
In a soft voice at the end of his sentencing hearing, Andrew Williams stood up and apologized to his two young kids killed when the minivan he was driving was hit by a freight train on a family outing.
“I just wanted to say sorry to my daughters ... for what happened to them,” he told the court after being invited to speak Wednesday by Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe. “There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t wish I could trade places with them — I’d do it in a second.”
Williams, 31, was convicted in January of a number of charges, including two counts of dangerous driving causing death. Returning from a happy Sunday morning trip to Tim Hortons in Belle River with his four kids, his trial heard there was singing and music in the minivan and that Williams didn’t see or hear the approaching eastbound train.
His children Wynter, 6, and Brooklyn, 3, were killed. Dryden, 4 at the time, suffered critical injuries.
The Crown is seeking a jail sentence of 18 to 36 months and a driving prohibition of at least five years. The defence is asking for a suspended sentence.
In a victim impact statement, the children’s step-grandfather, Rick Barrette, described four young happy kids, who couldn’t be spoiled “regardless of how hard I tried.”
Wynter, he said, was the highspirited one with “an old soul,” the responsible caregiver to her siblings who loved nothing more than to let loose on visits to the grandparents, so much so she would try to skip meals to extend her playtime.
Brooklyn, who loved her dolls and animals, was extremely upset when she heard her beloved Papa was in hospital, shortly before the tragedy. Phoning her to say he was OK, he heard her on the other end telling her mother: “Papa is all better!”
Dryden was “always quite nice” but quiet, “because the two girls did the talking for him,” Barrette said.
Defence lawyer Laura Joy, describing it as “distasteful,” tried to prevent assistant Crown attorney Walter Costa from reading into the record victim impact statements written by the train crew. But based on their testimony at trial, “clearly, they were traumatized by the collision,” the judge said of the train conductor and engineer.
CP Rail conductor James Hamilton said the “terrible, life-altering event” forced him into early retirement and that he still suffers bouts of “overwhelming fear of impending doom.”
Engineer Chris McMillan described getting off the train, removing the children from the minivan and laying the two girls in the grass, “side-by-side so they would be angels together.” Against all hope, he performed CPR, hoping for a miracle.
McMillan came home that day “a forever-changed man,” who, nearly five years later, still suffers nightmarish flashbacks.
Joy described Williams as “a good man, a good father” who had a difficult life but was a hard worker who provided for his family, whom he loved. “There is really nothing the court can do to him that he hasn’t already suffered,” said Joy, adding her client shouldn’t be sent to jail for “a lack of attention for a few seconds.”
Williams, she said, received a “significant brain injury” that has left him on disability, likely for the rest of his life. He suffers regular seizures. When it comes to accepting responsibility for that day, Joy said her client “has to tell himself it was a tragic accident, otherwise he can’t live with himself.”
Costa said the judge had to distinguish between the father’s remorse for the loss of his children and his responsibility for their deaths.
“Dangerous driving causing death ... it warrants a jail term,” he said.
Munroe will announce his decision April 28.