A 39-year-old man has been handed a one-year conditional sentence and an 18-month driving ban after pleading guilty to driving drunk and causing a four-vehicle crash in Burnaby that left a motorcyclist with internal injuries two years ago.
James Denny Mitchell had been charged with six counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm in relation to a multi-vehicle crash at Imperial Street and McKay Avenue on April 19, 2019.
Mitchell had been driving a black Dodge Journey in a line of traffic westbound on Imperial at around 10 a.m. that day, according to agreed facts presented by Crown prosecutor Patrick Fullerton in Vancouver provincial court last week.
The traffic stopped at a red light at Imperial and Sussex Avenue, but when it began moving again, Mitchell's SUV stayed put.
When another driver honked, the Journey “essentially bolted,” according to Fullerton.
“(It) began swerving on the road, narrowly missing a pedestrian walking a dog, and slammed into a vehicle in front of it at the next intersection,” he said.
The vehicle that Mitchell hit, a Toyota Corolla, then careened into another vehicle which slammed into a motorcycle.
The motorcyclist initially appeared to be “relatively OK,” according to Fullerton, but ended up needing emergency surgery.
“It turned out he was suffering from internal bleeding as a result of injuries, having been knocked clear off of his motorcycle,” he said.
Mitchell and the people in the Corolla were also hurt.
At the hospital, blood tests revealed Mitchell had a blood-alcohol concentration of up to more than twice the legal limit.
A police investigation later found his vehicle had been going between 76 and 83 km/h in a 50-km/h zone before the chain-reaction collision
He was charged with six counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm, but pleaded guilty to just one last week.
In a joint sentencing submission, Fullerton acknowledged Mitchell had an “unenviable driving record” and hadn’t had a valid driver’s licence on the day of the crash.
But Fullerton also noted Mitchell, who battles alcohol addiction, has been sober since the accident and is currently supporting his common-law partner and three of her nieces, aged three, eight and 10.
Fullerton also noted Mitchell had had a traumatic childhood, with his mother having survived residential school and his father having been taken in the Sixties Scoop.
Fullerton further noted Mitchell’s relatively early guilty plea.
Fullerton and defence lawyer Anthony Robinson both called for Mitchell to be allowed to serve his sentence in the community, with a curfew, mandatory addictions counselling, a ban on alcohol consumption and an 18-month driving prohibition.
Vancouver provincial court Judge Ellen Gordon called the offence “very serious” but agreed the sentence was appropriate on the facts and particularly in Mitchell’s personal circumstances.
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Email cnaylor@burnabynow.com
