The victim impact statement from the victim’s grandfather. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
A Big River First Nation family is upset with a nearly two-year sentence for the man who struck and killed a five-year-old last summer while driving in Big River.
Stephen Lalonde, 43, was driving his truck after dark on the main highway driving through Big River in August and failed to remain at the scene after he hit the boy, who was biking at the time.
Video surveillance shows Lalonde stopping at a nearby gas station soon afterwards. Lalonde saw people attending to the boy but he did not return to the scene, said Crown prosecutor Catherine Gagnon.
Lalonde was recently sentenced at Prince Albert Provincial Court for failing to stop at the scene of an accident, and for taking reckless actions involving an offence that involved bodily harm or death.
The victim’s family provided five victim impact statements, with Gagnon describing them as “visibly mad.”
In her victim impact statement, the boy’s mom asks the judge for a lengthier punishment for Lalonde, saying “your honor I hope you can find it in your heart to see the loss of this child’s life was greater than two years less a day.”
The sentence was arrived at as a joint submission by the Crown and defence, where the initial charges of impaired driving and criminal negligence were dropped.
Gagnon said the Crown was not in a position to seek a greater sentence in this case. In fact, if Lalonde had stopped immediately after the collision and sought help for the boy, they wouldn’t have been able to lay charges at all, she said.
She also says lawyers were seeking to resolve the matter in a timely fashion, due to a recent Supreme Court ruling that opens the door for acquittal if cases are not dealt with within two years of charges being laid.
The victim impact statements from the boy’s mother, aunts, grandmother, and grandfather are lengthy. They describe the close relationship the boy, who was nicknamed “chocolate brownie,” had with his young sibling and cousins.
The boy’s grandfather says he was in disbelief six months ago when he died, and still is today.
“I start shaking when I think of how his death happened,” wrote Clarence McAdam.
Many say they are in constant fear for the safety of the other kids in their family.
“I have really bad anxiety when my kids leave the home,” wrote the boy’s aunt Chantelle McAdam, while the boy’s grandmother Maureen McAdam wrote “I’m afraid of leaving my grandson for a few minutes.”
With credit for time served, Lalonde received a sentence of 514 days in jail, a $200 victim surcharge, and a three-year driving prohibition.