The biggest concern to come out of the sentencing hearing for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, the semi-truck driver involved in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, is the system that allowed him to be on the road, according to one Toronto-based defence lawyer.
“How did he end up on the road that day? How was he trained so shoddily? How were his log books so falsely filled out?” said Ari Goldkind, a Toronto-based defence lawyer, on Saturday during an interview on Global News Morning.
“There’s a whole bunch of other people behind the scenes that should have been shoulder-to-shoulder in criminal court with Mr. Sidhu, not him left on his own.”
Sidhu pleaded guilty in a Melfort, Sask., courtroom to 29 dangerous driving charges in the April 2018 collision that killed 16 people and injured 13 others. During his sentencing hearing, the Crown argued that he should serve 10 years in prison.
However, Goldkind believes Sidhu’s term will be less than that due to mitigating circumstances. He described the driver as a “very different kind of criminal” compared to others that have plotted before taking a life.
“No texting, no sexting, no impaired by drug or alcohol; he seemed to indicate he was distracted by a tarp. He was not someone who woke up in the morning thinking he was going to go out and create havoc,” Goldkind said.
“I would be expecting something in the range of four to six years, but I will tell you that there is no answer that will satisfy everybody.”
Sidhu is set to be sentenced on March 22.
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