$2,000 FINE FOR HIT-RUN DRIVER
Raced away after girl struck, left badly injured
• The driver who struck and critically injured a 13-year-old Ottawa girl in 2022, reversed, looked back, and then raced away has been fined $2,000 and will lose his driver’s licence for one year.
Mahmoud Ghanam, 23, was sentenced Friday on charges of failing to remain at the scene of an accident, failing to render assistance and failing to provide his information to police.
Ghanam pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal that was heard before Justice of the Peace Louis Dibblee in Ottawa’s Provincial Offences Court.
The crash left Serene Summers, now 14, with a permanent brain injury.
She spent several days in a medically induced coma and initially communicated with her family only through American Sign Language, which she had learned in school.
In her victim’s impact statement, Summers, her right leg still in a brace, described the toll from her injuries.
“I was a happy person. A happy kid. I played volleyball. I liked to hang out with friends. Ride my bike. Anything and everything a normal kid would do. My goal was to start up a babysitting business,” she said in a steady voice.
“Then Feb. 13, 2022, happened. I was hit by a car — your car. You hit me, backed up to see what you hit, then drove off. You lied to the police when they asked about your involvement. You said you’d sold your car the day before. All this while I was lying in a hospital bed for weeks and weeks, crying in pain. We begged you to come forward and take responsibility for what you did. But you didn’t,” she said.
“I get that you are young and afraid, but I was much younger and more afraid.”
Summers described how she had recurring dreams of dying and how her personality had changed, severing relationships and making schoolwork difficult. She still experiences chronic pain, although not as severe as in the months after she was struck. She just started Grade 9 at Merivale High School.
“I want you to look into my eyes and know that you are guilty. I actually want you to live a very long life knowing that you’re guilty. You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said.
Ghanam, dressed in white running shoes, blue jeans and a black collared shirt, stared ahead, occasionally turning to meet Summer’s eyes.
Afterwards, Dibblee gave Ghanam a sharp admonishment.
“Why are you smirking?” the justice of the peace said with a scowl.
Friday’s hearing was originally scheduled for last week, but Dibblee delayed it because Ghanam and his lawyer, Joseph Addelman, were not in court, but rather were watching via Zoom. That, too, produced a rebuke from the bench.
Dibblee said a victim’s impact statement has more effect when heard in person and he was “significantly offended” by the defence’s absence from the court.
Neither Addelman nor Ghanam would speak to this newspaper after Friday’s hearing.
Outside court, Serene’s mother, Anita Armstrong, said she was disappointed by the lenient sentence.
“We were hoping for something different. We had some hope that the sentencing would be a little bit higher, especially hearing that he’s admitted to driving the vehicle. It’s confusing,” Armstrong said.