Indo-Canadian Driver Convicted In Fatal Hit-And-Run

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Jagjit Singh Basra was convicted of failing to stop his vehicle and offer assistance after a motor vehicle accident causing death. Basra’s sentencing is set for Sept. 11.

NEW WESTMINSTER — An Indo-Canadian driver from Surrey who struck and killed a man along a rural stretch of Fraser Highway in 2010 has been found guilty of hit-and-run and being “willfully blind” to the damage he did.

Jagjit Singh Basra was convicted of failing to stop his vehicle and offer assistance after a motor vehicle accident causing death. Basra’s sentencing is set for Sept. 11.

Shamus Travis William MacKay, 19, was killed on Sept. 4, 2010 on Fraser Highway, just east of 168th Street, shortly before 1 a.m., reported Surrey Now newspaper.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Basra saw or ought to have seen Mr. MacKay before the accident,” Justice Frits Verhoeven noted, following a trial in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster. “Tragically, it appears that Mr. MacKay may have been attempting to commit suicide.”

The judge found, however, that Basra was “well-aware of the possibility that the accident had involved a collision with a person, but chose not to investigate or inquire, in order to avoid finding out what he did not want to find out. He was willfully blind to the fact that the accident had involved a collision with Mr. MacKay.”

The court heard Basra was driving a 2008 Volkswagen City Jetta that owned by his girlfriend at the time, Parveen K. Bains, who was also in the car.

Basra lived in Surrey with his parents and Bains in Burnaby with her parents. She picked him up to go paddle boating at Burnaby Lake. After they had dinner, they went to Langley to check out a store, had coffee and then Bains then set about driving Basra home.

On the way, Bains started getting chest pains and asked Basra to drive. He took over the wheel just north of the intersection of 168th Street and Fraser Highway.

He didn’t tell Bains he’d been prohibited from driving as his licence was suspended at the time. Basra testified he was driving about 55 km/h. He was not speeding, and had not been drinking.

The couple testified they saw nothing prior to the crash and didn’t see what hit the car. They heard a “thud” and saw a large hole in the windshield. Bains was crying and screaming. Both were afraid, thinking someone had thrown a rock through the windshield.

Basra testified he wanted to stop, but Bains didn’t want him to. She urged him to keep going, the court heard. Basra said he stopped the car about 300 yards from where the crash happened after his girlfriend said she wanted to drive. He confirmed she wasn’t injured and no rock had been thrown at the windshield. They switched seats. Bains testified she was so frightened, she forgot about her chest pains.

The court also heard Bains urged Basra to call a glass repair shop immediately and he called Michael Vleeming, of Exclusive Auto Glass, at 1:09 a.m. According to Vleeming, Basra was frantic to have the windshield repaired that night but Vleeming couldn’t because he was at a concert at the PNE. They arranged to repair the windshield later that morning. Basra and Bains then caught a cab to Basra’s home, where they spent the night. Vleeming replaced the windshield and took the damaged windshield back to his shop.

“It was too heavily damaged to be put into the dumpster safely, so he laid it on the floor,” Vleeming noted. “Later that day, Basra called him and told him not to discard the windshield.”

The police later seized it, and forensic analysis confirmed that two hairs taken from the windshield matched MacKay’s DNA.

Judge found neither Basra nor Bains to be credible witnesses.

The judge noted it was “immediately obvious” the Jetta had collided with “something very substantial.”

“In fact, there was much more than a mere ‘hole,'” the judge said. “Both he and Ms. Bains had cell phones with them and calling 911 would have been easy to do.”

Instead, they left.

Courtesy Now Newspaper