KAMLOOPS, B.C. — A British Columbia judge has overturned a six-month jail term handed to a chronic prohibited driver who struck and killed a pedestrian at a crosswalk in the province's Interior.
Donald Isadore was driving without a licence on Nov. 21, 2012, when he hit 66-year-old Valerie Brook in Kamloops.
Isadore has never held a valid permanent driver’s licence, has a record of driving prohibitions dating back to 1986 and was bound by multiple driving bans and suspensions.
After a trial in July 2014, Provincial court Judge Stella Frame sentenced him to six months in jail.
Isadore appealed on the grounds that Frame failed to properly consider his native heritage in delivering her sentence.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Alison Beames has agreed, placing the Indian residential school survivor instead on three months of house arrest, followed by four-and-a-half months under a strict curfew.
"His decision to drive under those pressures is linked to his circumstances as an aboriginal person," she says.
"That is to say, I find particularly there is something in his horrific lifetime experiences that mitigates his actions in driving despite his prohibition," adding Isadore's time in residential school created "a lack of respect for the system." (Kamloops This Week)
