Officer admits to ‘typos’ in crash report
Constable says mistakes don’t change conclusion that woman was at fault
A report that concluded accused drunk driver Christy Natsis was at fault for a fatal crash contained mistakes.
A report that concluded accused drunk driver Christy Natsis was at fault for a fatal crash contained several mistakes, including at one point confusing which lane Natsis might have been in the second before the crash.
OPP collision investigator Const. Shawn Kelly admitted to a number of other “typos” in his report, along with the reference to Natsis’s being in her own westbound lane just prior to the collision on March 31, 2011, that killed Bryan Casey.
Kelly’s overall conclusion in his report was that Natsis crossed into Casey’s eastbound lane and was to blame for the crash.
Kelly seemed to be having difficulty explaining the slipup and was trying to qualify the confusing sentence when Ontario Court Justice Neil Kozloff interjected.
“I’m not going to do anybody’s work in this case. I want you to really think very hard about what you’re saying. You really think, based on your evidence, that the black Ford Expedition was in the westbound lane one second prior to the collision?” asked Kozloff.
“No, I do not think that, sir,” replied Kelly.
“OK. Well, then, isn’t what you’re trying to say, ‘I made a mistake by putting westbound. It should read eastbound?’”
“Yes, that’s correct, Your Honour,” Kelly replied.
The error about which lane Natsis might have been in was pointed out shortly after Kelly testified that Casey would have seen something that caused him to hit the brakes about four seconds and 75 metres before the head-on collision.
Kelly said he calculated that distance based on standard perception reaction times. An airbag control module showed Casey hit the brakes 1.9 seconds before the collision, slowing his truck from 80 kilometres an hour to 34 km/h.
Typically, it would have taken two seconds before that for Casey to react, Kelly said. At the time, Natsis was 171 metres away, according to Kelly. If Natsis was in her own lane one second before the collision, there would be no explanation for why Casey was braking.
Kelly also voluntarily pointed out other errors in his report, including the misspelling of an officer’s name, a mixed-up date and a time reference that was off by a fraction of a second.
But Kozloff himself then noted other contradictions he found using Google, including how the name of the towing company seemed to be misspelled and that the vehicle weight for a Dodge Dakota like Casey’s was wrong.
Kelly had the pickup truck’s weight at 2,727 kilograms. That was actually the truck’s gross vehicle weight rating, or GVWR. Google said the actual weight was 2,072 kg, Kozloff said.
Kelly confessed he never did get an actual weight for Natsis’s 2010 Ford Expedition, but just knew that it was heavier.
Kelly didn’t know what the GVWR meant until Kozloff shared his findings from Google.
The weight of the vehicles is an issue because Kelly had testified Natsis’s was heavier
‘There may be some minor revisions, there may be some corrections, but … it does not change the completion of the report or the analysis of the report.’
CONST. SHAWN KELLY
OPP investigator
than Casey’s.
Things didn’t get better for Kelly in cross-examination by one of Natsis’s lawyers, Vince Clifford, who got Kelly to admit his report also needed correcting about exactly where the airbag restraint module data from Casey’s truck was downloaded.
Kelly couldn’t promise Clifford there weren’t going to be more corrections, but stood by his report.
“All of these particular changes don’t influence my report one way or the other,” said Kelly. “There may be some minor revisions, there may be some corrections, but it doesn’t, in my respectful submission, does not change the completion of the report or the analysis of the report.”
Natsis’s lawyers already want Kelly’s testimony to be excluded from evidence, arguing that he was biased and not an expert witness. On Thursday, they asked for a stay of proceedings that would end the trial because they allege Kelly destroyed a draft copy of the report.
Kozloff said those arguments would wait for another day.
Prosecutor John Ramsay said he now expects the trial, which is already in its sixth week, will need three or four more weeks to complete. The trial is off now until April 15 for six days. More dates are expected to be set.
Kozloff has already tossed out breath samples that showed Natsis had a bloodalcohol level that was twoand-a-half times the legal limit because of rights violations. Court has heard Casey’s blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit.