CALGARY – A judge has convicted a young man of illegally street racing with a friend, who lost control of his vehicle and rolled, injuring his passenger and a woman in a vehicle he struck head on.
In convicting Justin Gould, 20, on Thursday, provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk said although Gould was not involved in a crash, he was equally responsible for the consequences of the high-speed race with Timmothy Field on Macleod Trail on Nov. 8, 2008.
“I find that the accused’s participation in a street race with Field was inherently dangerous,” said the judge, who convicted Gould of two counts of racing his vehicle with another vehicle in a manner dangerous to the public causing bodily harm.
“The manner of driving created a grave risk of death or injury to other users of the road. What happened at the intersection of Macleod Trail and 36th Avenue came within the ambit of that risk. I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused’s manner of driving was a contributing cause of the accident and the bodily harm sustained by the two victims, Susan McGill-Hoff and Justin Emery.”
The judge concluded that the two drivers – Gould in his 1991 Nissan Skyline and Field in his black Nissan Maxima – had been driving southbound at high speeds before they stopped for a red light at 25th Avenue.
Several witnesses gave varying accounts, but some were clear that as the two offending vehicles were side by side at the 25th Avenue intersection there were gestures to each other that suggested they wanted to race.
Both Emery and Gould denied there were any such gestures.
The vehicles both then sped away, mostly side by side, until Field lost control, mounted the concrete median dividing the northbound and southbound lanes of Macleod Trail and then struck an oncoming Jeep SUV at 36th Avenue.
Emery, a passenger in Field’s vehicle, and McGill-Hoff, a passenger in the Jeep driven by her husband William Hoff, were seriously injured.
Gould had denied he was racing.
“This decision shows that even racing drivers who do not crash face the same liability as those who did crash,” Crown prosecutor Jonathan Hak said outside court.
“Drivers who engage in risky driving behaviour face criminal liability when things go wrong.”
McGill-Hoff suffered whiplash to her neck, bruising from the seatbelt, pooling blood in her chest and abdomen, injuries to her lower back, neck and right ankle, muscle and cartilage damage, torn right knee ligaments and a bruised right hand.
She required surgery and took 50 weeks of physiotherapy.
Emery sustained a wound on his forehead that required 35 stitches to close, a fracture to his right shoulder, bruises on his chest from the seatbelt, welts on his hips, a sprained right ankle and cuts on his right leg.
Field previously pleaded guilty to the same two charges and was sentenced to 90 days to be served on weekends, but the Alberta Court of Appeal recently elevated that to 15 months on a Crown appeal.
Semenuk ordered a pre-sentence report to be completed for sentencing arguments by Hak and defence lawyer Kim Ross on July 29.
Calgary Herald
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