Sentencing adjourned in P.E.I. dangerous driving causing bodily harm case
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Sentencing has been adjourned for a person who drove dangerously and collided head-on with one other car, sending a father and his two younger daughters to hospital with vital accidents.
“This can be a major problem in our province,” stated Crown legal professional John Diamond at a sentencing listening to in provincial courtroom in Charlottetown on April 26 for Edwin Jos.
Jos, 27, beforehand pleaded responsible to harmful driving inflicting bodily hurt. Diamond opposed a conditional sentence – or home arrest – for the offence and advisable 16 to 18 months in jail.
“There must be a transparent message from this courtroom,” he stated.
Authorized-aid lawyer Trish Cheverie advisable a conditional sentence of two years much less a day.
On Monday, July 18, 2022, at 5:15 p.m., the Queens District RCMP was known as to the scene of a two-vehicle, head-on collision on Route 2 close to the Blooming Level Street intersection in Tracadie.
A number of drivers advised police they needed to take evasive motion to keep away from colliding with a blue Hyundai pushed by Jos that was dashing and illegally passing automobiles on double-solid traces between Charlottetown and the accident scene.
The daddy and his two daughters (then 14 and 10 years outdated) had been transported to hospital for therapy of their accidents. The women’ accidents included damaged bones, a damaged tibia, a torn stomach muscle, bruising, cuts and seatbelt burns. The woman’s father had cuts, a extreme concussion and different accidents.
The victims sat quietly in courtroom on April 26 to listen to the submissions from the attorneys.
Given a number of components – the seriousness of the offence (as mirrored within the most sentence of 14 years in jail), the excessive diploma of Jos’s accountability, the hurt and affect on the victims and the neighborhood and the variety of victims – Diamond argued that home arrest wasn’t applicable.
Rehabilitating or deterring Jos from committing future offences weren’t main components on this case, Diamond defined. As an alternative, deterring others and denouncing the offence are precedence concerns that may’t be achieved on P.E.I. by a conditional sentence, he stated.
On Nov. 17, the Felony Code of Canada and the Managed Medication and Substances Act had been amended to take away the obligatory minimal sentences on some offences and increase the provision of conditional sentences. These adjustments have been the idea for latest conditional sentences in P.E.I. in two drug possession for trafficking functions issues, in addition to a harmful driving inflicting bodily hurt determination involving Taylor Edward Cooke.
On March 30, Cooke, 24, was sentenced by Justice Jonathan Coady in P.E.I. Supreme Court docket to a conditional sentence of two years much less a day involving 14 months of home arrest and afterwards a curfew and a two-year driving ban. Diamond was additionally the Crown legal professional within the Cooke determination and sought a jail sentence of 20 to 24 months and a four-year driving ban.
The Crown will likely be interesting the Cooke determination, stated Diamond, who added that evaluating the Cooke determination with Jos’s matter is problematic given the distinction in info by way of the driving behaviour, the kind of highway, time of day and variety of victims.
Jos was additionally taken to hospital in Halifax and was on life-support for 2 weeks, stated Cheverie. He’s affected by reminiscence loss and nonetheless would not know why he was driving dangerously that day.
In help of a conditional sentence, Cheverie stated her consumer did not have a previous legal report and hasn’t dedicated any offences whereas launched from custody because the matter proceeded in courtroom.
Jos is initially from India and has been in Canada for about six years. He has been a short lived international employee in P.E.I. since 2020, employed at AgraWest Meals in Souris. He was travelling to work on the time of the offence. A conditional sentence will enable him to proceed working at that job.
Even so, Cheverie stated she spoke to the Canada Border Providers Company, and Jos will likely be deported after both a conditional sentence or jail time period is served.
Cheverie disagreed with Diamond {that a} conditional sentence with strict circumstances can obtain the rules of denunciation and basic deterrence. And in contrast to Cooke, who pleaded not responsible and had a trial, Jos pleaded responsible and took accountability for his actions.
“If Taylor Cooke will get a conditional sentence within the aggravating circumstances of that case and my consumer would not – how is that honest? How is that treating people in a constant method, which is the duty of the courtroom … that individuals in comparable circumstances are handled in comparable methods?” requested Cheverie.
“That is the query,” replied Decide Nancy Orr. “Primarily it comes all the way down to that.”
Orr adjourned her sentencing determination to Might 9.
