Driver pleads guilty in wild crash that left couple dead

OTTAWA — A young driver whose outof-control sports car fishtailed wildly before killing a couple and leaving their three daughters orphaned pleaded guilty Wednesday to dangerous driving causing death.

Simon Banke admitted to a judge he was spinning and squealing his tires and driving at a “dangerously high rate of speed” on a wet downtown Ottawa street before sliding sideways into Leo Paul Regnier and his wife, Sherrianne, as they stood at a bus stop on Sept. 16, 2010.

Sherrianne was thrown into a marble pillar and hit her head after the soupedup Nissan 300 ZX plowed through a concrete and wood bench, two newspaper boxes, a concrete garbage can and a bus stop sign, prosecutor Lisa Miles told court. A safety check revealed the car’s tires were severely worn.

Banke’s Nissan then struck Leo Paul, carrying him until it hit a curb and tossed him to the ground, partially pinning him beneath the car. He died rapidly at the scene from a ruptured aorta, Miles said.

Sherrianne spent three days in intensive care before dying from her injuries.

The couple, both 35, had been celebrating the anniversary of the day they met with a movie when they were struck. Their deaths left their three daughters, Sarah, Jessica and Isabella, then aged 15, 13 and nine, without their parents.

Witnesses painted a portrait of the then 20-year-old banke zipping around downtown streets in the half-hour leading up to the collision.

According to a witness, Banke had been driving at a high rate of speed in the halfhour before the 10:30 p.m. collision.