Driver pleads guilty in fatal head-on crash

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This article was published 19/04/2018 (2198 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba driver took responsibility Friday for a deadly drunk-driving crash that killed a 29-year-old woman and seriously hurt one of his passengers.

Colin Simard pleaded guilty in St. Boniface court to impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm for a June 26, 2016, crash he caused while speeding with a blood-alcohol level more than double the legal limit.

The crash happened around 4:30 a.m. on Provincial Highway 207 near Lorette when Simard lost control of the GMC Sierra he was driving and slammed into a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. The occupant of that vehicle, 29-year-old Shea Lynne Fright, was killed.

Simard was 18 at the time and had been drinking with friends that night after they bought a case of beer and took it to a house in rural Manitoba. Simard got into an argument and was kicked out of the house, so he got behind the wheel and set out to drive two friends home to Lorette. At some point, he lost control of his vehicle on the right shoulder of the highway, and rather than go into trees near the ditch, Simard swerved left and drove into the path of Fright’s vehicle, court heard.

He was travelling about 155 kilometres per hour, well above the speed limit. After the crash, he failed a breathalyzer test and told police he drank two beers. Other people who were with him earlier that night told police he’d had three to five beers.

Simard, whose sister died in an impaired driving rollover in 2014, is set to be sentenced next month. The Crown is expected to seek a four-year prison sentence and defence lawyer Richard Wolson indicated in court he’ll ask the judge for a lesser sentence. Provincial court Judge Dale Harvey accepted Simard’s guilty pleas Friday.