Inukjuak car-surf accused gets 10 months

Tommy Palliser, the Inukjuak man involved in the 2009 car-surfing incident that left one man dead, has been sentenced to a ten-month prison sentence for his role in the crime.

Palliser was sentenced in Inukjuak Jan. 18. The location and conditions of his sentence are still unclear.

Last August, Palliser pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal negligence causing death, linked to the June 2009 accident in which his friend, Kevin Ducharme, fell from the top of an SUV that Palliser was driving in Montreal.

Judge Claude Bigué of Nunavik’s traveling court requested a pre-sentencing report, usually requested when a serious criminal offence in involved, often including interviews with the accused’s family and friends to shed light on the circumstances around the offence.

At a November 2010 hearing, Crown prosecutor Lyly-Anne Ratelle asked Judge Bigué for a three-year sentence.

Palliser was driving a 2006 Jeep Commander through the Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux on June 29, 2009, when Ducharme, his common-law spouse’s cousin, climbed through a sunroof onto the top of the vehicle.

When the traffic light turned green, Palliser drove forward, and the movement knocked Ducharme off the vehicle and caused him to fall on his head.
Ducharme, 38, died days later in hospital.

Palliser, a 35-year-old senior business advisor with the Kativik Regional Government, has been out on bail in Inukjuak since his arrest.

This case is the first in a string of recorded cases of car surfing in Quebec that has gone to court and was the first recorded instance of car surfing in Montreal.

(More to come)