The driver who fatally struck a young Ukrainian refugee in a brazen hit and run in Montreal in 2022 pleaded guilty Thursday.
Mariia Legenkovska was killed while walking with her brother and sister to class. The seven-year-old was hit by a car in a school zone just east of downtown Montreal on Dec. 13 2022, but the motorist fled the scene.
Juan Manuel Becerra Garcia turned himself in to police later that day. He was charged with one count of failing to stop after an accident resulting in death, but released with conditions.
He entered his guilty plea at the Montreal courthouse Thursday. Becerra Garcia read an apology to Mariia’s family, with her mother in the audience, saying he had no words to describe the tragedy.
Becerra Garcia said on the morning of the fatal hit and run, he knew he hit something but hadn’t realized it was a person.
Both the Crown prosecutor and the lawyer representing Becerra Garcia are seeking a 12-month sentence to be served in the community. They say he cooperated with police and had no prior convictions.
“He is devastated,” said Eric Coulombe, Becerra Garcia’s lawyer.
Mariia’s death sent shockwaves through the province, prompting protests and calls for safer roads and school zones. Montreal’s Ville-Marie borough, where Mariia died, implemented a swath of traffic-calming measures a few months later.
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Mariia had recently arrived in Canada when she was killed. Her family fled their war-torn country of Ukraine due to the Russian invasion, but they weren’t able to settle in Montreal together.
Her father was fighting for Ukraine’s territorial defence forces when she was killed and he travelled to the front lines to bury Mariia. At the time, Galyna Legenkovska described her daughter as a “happy child” who had come to make Montreal her new home.
Crown prosecutor Sylvie Dulude said it was important for Mariia’s mother to be in the courtroom on Thursday, adding she waited more than a year for a guilty plea.
“She said that she was in peace with this,” Dulude told reporters.
The judge in the case will rule on sentencing next month.
— with files from Global’s Tim Sargeant and The Canadian Press