Valerie Standing leaves court. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
A woman has received a three and a half year penitentiary sentence for driving over and killing her commonlaw partner while drunk on the Wahpeton reserve in April of 2013.
Valerie Standing, 30, had previously entered guilty pleas for impaired driving causing the death of Brant Fox, and driving with a blood alcohol content about 0.08.
She also received a five-year driving ban and has to pay a victim surcharge.
Standing maintains she was too drunk to remember what happened while she was behind the wheel, but she and Fox, who was 28 at the time, had been arguing just before that.
Soon after, he was pinned under the vehicle and Standing was hysterically asking for help from a family member who lived nearby.
Standing said she never meant to kill Fox.
Fox’s mother Shannon Standing, who is not related by blood to Valerie but is married to Valerie’s uncle (who was Fox’s stepfather), delivered a raw and emotional victim impact statement.
Shannon Standing (right) with two of Brant Fox’s sisters, holding a photo of Fox. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
She touched on unresolved issues over Standing and Brant’s tumultuous relationship, which Shannon called “abusive.”
Through tears, Shannon asked “why did you do this to our family Val?”
She said Fox was a great dad and can never be replaced.
Valerie chose to address the court, saying she has done a “terrible, stupid thing” and is reminded every time she looks at the six-year-old daughter she and Fox had together.
“My daughter will never know her dad, and that will always be on me,” she said.
Valerie added that when her daughter can understand those events, Valerie will hope for her forgiveness.
Outside court, Shannon said now she and Fox’s four siblings will put the court process behind them and continue healing from the results of Valerie’s actions.
“She hurt our family and I’ve been waiting for this day for three years, and I’m finally getting a sense of closure today. I have to learn to forgive her now so we can all move on as a family,” Shannon said.
She said Wahpeton is a small community of about 300, and she works with Valerie’s father everyday.
“We have to get along,” she said. “We all live in the same community and we just have to get along and it’s all behind us now.”
Neither Shannon nor her three daughters felt that the prison sentence Valerie received was enough to make up for the pain they’ve suffered.
“(Valerie’s family) has to learn to live without their daughter for three years, I’ve got to learn to live without my son for, until I’m gone,” she said.
Valerie has been on judicial interim release for three years, meaning she has more than three years left to serve of her sentence.
The Crown had asked for a five-year sentence and 10 year driving ban, while defence had asked for a suspended sentence and a driving prohibition that’s lower than 10 years.
Justice Currie weighed a few factors in Valerie’s favour, including the fact that she had been driving slowly, that she has a dependent daughter, that she hasn’t breached any conditions while out of prison, and that she has committed to removing alcohol from her life.
Overall, he said one of the Gladue factors override Valerie’s moral culpability, because nothing about the history of colonialism and reserve life kept her from understanding that driving while drunk was wrong and risky.