TORONTO – The trial began with Antonette Wijeratne in tears, listening to the prosecutor recount the moments before an impaired driver slammed into her family car, killing her husband and 16-year-old daughter and leaving her severely injured, reported Toronto Star newspaper.
Six months later, the trial ended with Wijeratne in tears — this time of relief — as the judge soundly rejected the testimony of the driver and found him guilty on 12 charges, including impaired driving causing death and criminal negligence causing death.
“The judge saw the truth,” Wijeratne said, standing outside the courthouse by her son Brian, with friends and family holding up photographs of her late husband, Jayanatha, and daughter Eleesha. “I am relieved even though my husband and daughter are not coming back. This nightmare has been so painful.”
The driver, Sabastian Prosa, was 19 at the time of the crash and had admitted to having a blood-alcohol level around twice the legal limit when he made a U-turn and sped the wrong way down Highway 427 in the early hours of Aug. 5, 2012.
Prosa testified in his defence that he could not remember anything that happened between being at a downtown Toronto bar and waking up in the hospital after the crash.
The defence argued that his “bizarre and purposeless driving” and his memory loss could not be explained simply by his blood alcohol level, and it was possible that Prosa’s drink had been spiked at the bar. That would mean Prosa was involuntarily intoxicated.
In his reasons for judgment, Justice Glen Hainey said that he did not believe Prosa’s testimony, finding him to “be evasive and to have a selective memory.”
Though Prosa was adamant he drank four shots at a friend’s house, he could recall no other details such as what he drank, where he got it or what time it was, Hainey said. And while under oath for a civil proceeding three months before he testified, Prosa maintained he only had two drinks.
“A good deal of his testimony did not make sense, particularly his inability to recall so many details about events that occurred before he arrived at Skybar,” Hainey said. “I find that he is tailoring his evidence to support his defence of involuntary intoxication.”
Hainey also rejected the drugging theory, noting that Prosa said that he only drank shots at the bar — drinks there are no realistic opportunities to spike.
The trial was complicated by the defence’s attempt to have all charges stayed because Prosa’s only remaining blood sample from that night leaked on its way to an independent lab for drug testing.
In an earlier ruling, Hainey found that Prosa’s Charter rights were violated and that the provincial Centre of Forensic Sciences had been negligent, but he did not toss out the charges.
Prosa, sitting alone behind his lawyers, appeared to have steeled himself for the verdict and continued to sit grim-faced as the many supporters of the Wijeratne family filed out of courtroom.
The case returns for sentencing on Aug. 28.
“The number of (impaired driving) cases we get makes it clear to me that there are people listening to this or watching this right now that will drink and drive and think they can get away with it,” Crown prosecutor Tom Goddard told reporters after the verdict. “I just hope they are paying attention, because this has been a tragedy from the beginning.”
