Charge dropped against city driver in girl’s death

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

In less than a minute, it was over.

Maurice Lachance, 55, strode to the front of the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit and heard the words he’d been waiting for since being charged with driving a city vehicle that was unfit for the road.

The Crown was dropping the charge.

To many in the court gallery, the case seemed quick and insignificant. However, the moment could mark a major turning point in the city’s battle to put ghosts of a deadly past to rest.

Lachance’s case was the only one of three fatal accidents involving municipal vehicles in the past three years that has gone to court. The Crown’s decision to drop the charges suggests no one will be held responsible for the death of the four-year-old girl hit by a sewage truck while crossing the road.

Lachance feels his name has been cleared.

“I’m just happy the whole thing is over,” Lachance said. “We’ve been to hell. I’ve been crying like a baby. I didn’t drive for a few months but I had to go back because driving is all I can do.

“But it [the accident] is still in my head. I think of it every time I come over that hill.”

Lachance was charged when the truck he was driving on April 12 hit Sheila Mathewsie as she crossed Apex Road near the water pumping station. She was heading home at lunchtime. This week, after the charge was dropped, Lachance admitted the truck was not in perfect working condition – the wheels were worn, the gears to turn the wheels were loose and the brakes would pull the truck to the right.

But Lachance said he inspected everything he could on the truck on the morning of the accident, and that the truck’s faults did not contribute to the young girl’s death.

Original reports from police suggest that the charge against Lachance was dropped because the city had improved its safety procedures related to public vehicles. Police said later that the charge was dropped because new evidence and “the bigger picture” made it clear that Lachance was not responsible for the accident.

Const. Wilfred Jephson, the officer in charge of this case, explained that the original investigators of the accident charged Lachance because he was the driver, but not necessarily because he was the one responsible for the accident.

Jephson said police couldn’t charge the city because of legal obstacles in the Motor Vehicles Act.

“It [charging Lachance] was the only outlet at the time that people investigating the file could see legally that they could charge the person, or hold the person responsible that owned the truck,” Jephson said.

He added the recent decision to drop the charge came after RCMP received a report from the motor vehicles division of the territorial government. Jephson refused to give details of the report, but pointed to how eyewitnesses, including a police officer, confirmed speed was not a factor in the accident.

“In looking at it now, it’s one of those things I don’t think could have been avoided, unless you look at getting rid of all the snow in Nunavut.”

Witnesses said that the girl was hit after running from behind a snowbank.

Veronica Mathewsie, the girl’s mother, said Sheila’s father has gone to Toronto for therapy for stress from their daughter’s death. “I feel bad every day,” she said. “I start crying every day, every morning, even before I wake up. I cry because I miss her.”

“She was my daughter, she was everything to me.”

CAP