A man charged in connection with a fatal crash in October that took the lives of an older couple outside of Toronto’s High Park had a suspended licence at the time of the collision, court documents show.
Toronto police charged the 38-year-old man in connection with the Oct. 12 crash on Friday.
Emergency crews were called to the intersection of Parkside Drive and Spring Road, just north of The Queensway, at around 4:40 p.m. for reports of a serious multi-vehicle crash.
Police said a man driving a 2013 BMW 320i was travelling south on Parkside Drive at a high rate of speed when it collided with a 2003 Toyota Matrix at Spring Road that had two people inside. It then caused a chain reaction with three other vehicles.
Five vehicles were involved in the collision, police said.
A 71-year-old man, later identified as Valdemar Avila, and his wife of 48 years, 69-year-old Fatima Avila, were both killed in the crash.
The man died on scene and the woman suffered critical injuries and died in hospital a short time later.
The driver of the BMW 320i was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
No other serious injuries were reported.
According to the couple’s daughter, the pair were driving together en route to a Costco in Etobicoke to refill a prescription when they were involved in the chain-reaction crash.
On Nov. 19, 38-year-old Artur Kotula, a resident of Burlington, was arrested.
Kotula is facing two counts of criminal negligence causing death.
Kotula surrendered to Toronto Police Traffic Services around 6 a.m. before being transported to 14 division where he was held for a court appearance via Zoom.
The Crown attorney told the Justice of the Peace that he would be seeking to cancel Kotula’s release after being charged with impaired driving and having a blood alcohol content of over 80 mg and would be seeking his detention at a show cause hearing next week.
Court records obtained by Global News find that the offence date for those charges was Sept. 21, 2021 in Peel Region, less than three weeks before the Avilas were killed in the collision. Kotula received an automatic 90-day driving suspension at the time of the charge.
The Crown also told the court that Kotula does not have immigration status and an immigration hold has been placed on him by the Canada Border Services Agency.
The couple’s daughter, whose name is under a publication ban, said she is heartbroken by the death of her parents, adding it didn’t have to happen.
“It’s been 38 days. I’ve been wondering who this person is, what is this person doing, are they sorry for what they’ve done,” she said in an interview with Global News, holding back tears.
Faraz Gholizadeh, the co-chair of a local advocacy group called “Safe Parkside” said he’s relieved charges have been laid. Gholizadeh said the one bright spot out of this tragedy is that the community has organized itself to make Parkside Drive safer.
Pointing to the fact that last week, Toronto city council approved a motion to reduce the speed limit along Parkside Drive from 50 to 40 km/h along with other traffic calming measures.
— With files from Ryan Rocca
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