Nine months after two young siblings were struck and killed in the driveway of their Vaughan home, their parents and surviving sister delivered heart-wrenching victim impact statements at a sentencing hearing for the 16-year-old driver who last December pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing their deaths.
Binta Patel choked back tears of agony in the witness box, as friends held up three framed pictures around her.
She remembered “the seemingly beautiful Sunday” on May 16, 2021, when she was with her husband and their three children, four-year-old Jax Chaudhari, 10-year-old Anaya Chaudhari and eight-year-old Kaya Chaudhari, before “the nightmare began.”
Jax and Anaya were both killed when a speeding 2017 Mercedes Benz sedan mounted the curb and hit the two children and a neighbour who was helping fix a chain on Anaya’s bike.
The neighbour, 60-year-old John Chiarelli, survived but suffered serious injuries.
The driver, who was 16 at the time, can only be known by his initials C.Z. due to young offender laws, remained at the scene.
“Every time I leave that driveway, I have to relive the moment leading up to that day. A home where I am confronted by the street and the flash of hearing a car barreling down the road and me screaming, ‘Watch out, a car’s coming,'” said Patel, sobbing.
She explained that the family cannot move away from the home on Athabasca Drive where the tragedy happened because they don’t want to upset their eight-year-old daughter Kaya Chaudhari, who also witnessed the tragedy and is in a fragile state.
Patel recalled she was sweeping the steps of her home, her husband was fixing a hose, and Kaya was playing with the children’s new puppy near the garage when the car appeared out of nowhere and struck their two children.
Their third child witnessed the horrible scene.
“All of my three children needed me. There was only one of me. Any mother will know what a gut-wrenching feeling that was,” Patel said. She went with Anaya to Sick Kids Hospital while her husband went with Jax to Mackenzie Health.
Jax was later transferred to Sick Kids where the siblings shared a room in the Intensive Care Unit. Jax was pronounced dead later that day.
“We are in the impossible situation of trying to process Jax is gone and focus on Anaya. I spent the night, hours awake, singing and talking to Anaya. Praying for a miracle.”
The following day, Anaya was taken off life support. Anaya would have celebrated her 11th birthday two days later.
Patel spoke about how excruciating it is to move forward, but how she gets up in the morning for Kaya, who has lost her sense of safety and trust since her siblings were killed.
“Kaya has been stripped of her childhood. She has been forced to grow up too fast,” Patel continued.
“The innocence and spirit of my living daughter Kaya has been completely crushed. She is incapable of processing her own grief and now has the burden of watching her parents struggle not to drown.”
Speaking directly to the Richmond Hill teen who, through his guilty plea, admitted to driving the car at 102 km/h in a 40 km/h zone before striking the curb and killing the children, Patel sobbed.
“There’s a small part of me that wants you to feel all the pain that I have suffered and suffer the way that Anaya and Jax suffered. It’s my mind that has to bear the feelings of anger and vengeance with the confusion of knowing that the only way out of this is forgiveness,” she said.
Ketan Chaudhari, the children’s father, was also overcome with tears as he tried to describe his suffering.
“Words are inadequate. I can’t convey the depth of pain and sadness I feel. My kids moved to Canada from the States a few years ago for a safer life,” Chaudhari explained.
Showing off some art that Anaya made and a tiger and book that Jax loved, Chaudhari said he takes the children’s backpacks with him everywhere he goes.
“This was our beautiful family of five. My life was destroyed in 2021 when your actions destroyed my perfect family, my happy family.”
Reliving the painful sequence of events of the hours after his children were struck in the driveway, Chaudhari recalled being allowed to accompany his son Jax as he was transferred to Sick Kids Hospital.
“They allowed me to sit in the ambulance when he was being transferred. People weren’t allowing us to pass. That drive replays in my head all the time,” Chaudhari said.
Chaudhari said used to be a fighter and a hard worker but has not been able to work since that day. He’s also unable to go into the basement of his home.
“All the cars and toys and dinosaurs in the basement are too hard for me to look at. The last workout in the basement was with Anaya. It reminds me of the past when I had three kids. The past is too painful.”
Chaudhari told the court he suffers from guilt and will never forget the sound of the speeding car.
“I froze and a car was in the air. I jumped and I see bodies on the floor. I was supposed to protect my kids and I failed my duties. I feel shattered and the pieces are everywhere. I don’t know who I am or what my place is in the world. I’m lost. I want my old life back so badly,” he said through tears.
A relative read a statement written by Kaya Chaudhari.
“I was filled with anger. I felt helpless. I didn’t want it to be true. Everything changed from that day,” Kaya wrote after learning that both her siblings had died.
“Every morning, I say hi to my siblings at the table we have set up. At night, we say prayers and say candles. Sometimes I wear her (Anaya’s) clothes and stay in her room,” Kaya wrote.
John Chiarelli, who was injured on the Chaudhari’s driveway, spoke about his memory of those few seconds of terror.
“The trauma of this avoidable negligence is truly measurable — a senseless tragedy that didn’t need to happen and for what?” Chiarelli said.
A teacher, aunts, uncles and family friends also read out victim impact statements.
Crown attorney Sean Doyle suggested a sentence of 16 months open custody, eight months community supervision, a one year probation and an eight year driving prohibition and a DNA order would be appropriate.
If he is sentenced to open custody, he will spend 16 months in a youth Justice facility.
The maximum sentence for dangerous driving causing death for an adult is life in prison. Doyle told the judge that in this case, the maximum penalty would be three years, under the provisions of the Youth criminal justice act.
C.Z. has been living under house arrest since being released on $300,000 bail ten days after the deadly collision. He is allowed to leave his Richmond Hill home when in the company of a surety or for medical emergencies or to attend school.
Defence attorney Seth Weinstein suggested a non-custodial sentence. He said a two year probation period, 240 hours of community service and a five year driving prohibition would be appropriate.
He also suggested his client be subject to a DNA order.
If a custodial sentence is necessary, Weinstein told Justice David S. Rose a six-month sentence would be adequate.
C.Z, who is now 17, stood up in court and addressed the victims, saying he is “so deeply sorry for this horrible situation” he caused.
“I don’t know how to start,” he said. “I want to express that I’m deeply tortured everyday and night by the pain and grief I have caused.”
He said his “heart is torn apart,” and that “tears are shed everyday.”
“I know my words cannot repair the lives of those destroyed as a result of my actions,” he said, adding that children “hold something so special.”
“I feel guilty for surviving, guilty for taking these young hopeless beautiful lives,” he continued. “And I know I’m destined to carry this with me for the rest of my life.”
He apologized for the grief he has caused to the parents of the deceased, as well as their friends.
Justice David S. Rose reserved his sentence. A new date has not yet been set.