A 16-year-old will spend the next 17 months under an intensive supervision order of the courts after pleading guilty to crashing a stolen car at a highway construction site last summer.
The youth, who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was sentenced by Judge Judy Shriar earlier this month in Canmore Provincial Court after pleading guilty to evading police, causing bodily harm and possessing stolen property.
Crown prosecutor Peter MacKenzie said Canmore RCMP were called at 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2010 for a possible impaired driver on the Trans-Canada Highway.
He said officers attended the roadside pullout near Lac Des Arcs and observed a small green Nissan, but when they approached the vehicle it sped off.
“There was a pursuit that goes on for a period of time across the Trans-Canada Highway back and forth,” MacKenzie said, adding speeds of up to 140 km/h were reached. “This driving pattern goes on for about 15 minutes around Canmore until the Nissan was involved in a collision with construction cement barricades, at which point both occupants were ejected.”
The youth was in the vehicle with his cousin when it struck the construction site for the pedestrian underpass. Both ended up in hospital with substantial injuries.
Defence attorney Tyson Dahlem said his client has no memory of the events, but takes responsibility for driving the vehicle, which was reported stolen from Calgary earlier that evening.
Dahlem and the Crown presented a joint submission recognizing the youth spent 45 days in pre-trial custody and is currently a ward of the state living in a group home.
“Clearly this is a young man with many challenges in his life and the more support he can have the better,” MacKenzie said. “If this incident had happened when he was 18 years old I would look for him to go into a federal institution.”
The intensive support and supervision order will last until the youth turns 18 on Dec. 30, 2012.
Dahlem said the nature of the sentence means that if his client breaks any of the rules at his group home he is in breach and will end up back in court and possibly back in custody.
“He advised me that is an experience he does not wish to repeat,” Dahlem said.
