A 26-year-old woman has been sentenced to a $1,400 fine and 12 months of probation for driving without due care and attention in a crash that killed a 75-year-old pedestrian in Burnaby in September 2021.
Jena Toni Dae was Vancouver provincial court for sentencing last week after pleading guilty to the offence in May.
At about 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 16, 2021, Dae was driving her 2020 Honda Civic on a dark residential street in Burnaby when she entered an intersection on a green light and signalled to turn left, according to agreed facts outlined by Judge Susan Sangha.
(Police had reported earlier the vehicle was travelling east on Kincaid Street and turned left onto Smith Avenue.)
Sangha said Dae waited for a bus coming in the opposite direction to pass before making the turn.
Meanwhile, 75-year-old Zulfikar Ramji, wearing a dark blue jacket and brown pants, was making his way slowly across a marked crosswalk in the same direction as the bus.
"As she was completing the turn, Ms. Dae spotted Mr. Ramji in the crosswalk," Sangha said. "She applied the brakes hard and swerved left and struck Mr. Ramji nonetheless."
Ramji flew over the hood of the car and cracked the windshield.
Dae stayed at the scene and talked to police.
She told officers she was "unsure" whether she'd been on the phone at the time of the crash, according to Sangha, but there was evidence she had been on the phone "at least in the moments before the collision."
Ramji was taken to hospital with a scalp laceration and multiple fractures.
"He initially appeared stable, but two days later he suffered a heart attack and died," Sangha said.
Dae initially cooperated with police but didn't show up for a sentencing date in December 2022.
A warrant was issued for her arrest, but she wasn't located until a year later – in Alberta.
Her lawyer said she had taken off to get away from a former intimate partner who was harassing her.
Dae has no criminal record but she was addicted to crystal methamphetamine at the time of the accident, according to the agreed facts.
In a victim impact statement, Ramji's widow told the court her husband's death has changed her life and the life of her children forever.
Given the family's loss, Sangha said Dae's sentence of a $1,400 fine and a period of probation to finish a remedial driving course, would seem "unfathomable" to many without the proper legal context.
She pointed out Dae was being sentenced for a Motor Vehicle Act offence, not a crime, and that the sentence was the product of the law as analyzed in other similar cases and as applied to the specific circumstances of Dae's case.
"While Mr. Ramji's death was the tragic consequence of Ms. Dae's actions, this sentence is not a reflection of the value of Mr. Ramji's life or the immeasurable loss to the family," Sangha said.
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