Source: Victoria Times Colonist
Driver in deadly crash sentenced to 3-year term
BRITISH COLUMBIA - A former resident of the Beecher Bay reserve, convicted in October of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death in a horrific collision on Metchosin Road, has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Yesterday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dean Wilson sentenced Andrew Anthony Charles, 25, to three years for impaired driving causing the death of his girlfriend Doreen Joseph, 20, of Alert Bay, and three years for impaired driving causing the death of his cousin, Glen Charles Jr., 23.
Wilson sentenced Charles to two years for each count of dangerous driving causing the death of Joseph and Glen Jr., a father of two young children. The sentences are to be served concurrently. Wilson also imposed a 10-year firearms ban, a 10-year driving prohibition and a DNA order.
"Drinking driving causing death or bodily harm offences are senseless crimes because they are so easily avoided and, at the same time, they are so easily committed by ordinary citizens," said Wilson, citing an earlier case. "They are unlike any other crime in the sense that nothing much can be offered to justify driving drunk ... except that alcohol allowed the offender to lose all sense of judgment."
Asked by Wilson if he had anything he wanted to say, Charles said no. He has denied being behind the wheel on the early morning of April 23, 2005, when his car hit a telephone pole just after 1 a.m.
The pole tore open the car like a sardine can, crushing Glen Jr. and flinging Joseph through the windshield. They were pronounced dead at the scene. Charles escaped with a broken wrist, cuts and bruises.
All three were at a party on the reserve the previous night, said Wilson. They had been driven by Charles -- who did not have a B.C. driver's licence -- in his car, which had brake and steering defects. All three were intoxicated and all continued to drink.
They left the party and were heading toward Victoria when the collision happened. Charles was driving at an excessive speed of about 70 kilometres per hour along Metchosin Road when he failed to negotiate a turn, said Wilson. He was taken to hospital, where a blood sample showed he had high a blood-alcohol concentration.
After being charged in connection with the crash, Charles was released on bail in September 2007 with conditions to stay away from the reserve. Since the collision, he has been involved in a number of alcohol-related incidents, noted Wilson.
A pre-sentence report, which deals with extenuating circumstances that should be taken into account during sentencing, showed Charles had suffered physical and sexual abuse during his unstable childhood. The majority of his family suffer from alcohol misuse.
But a psychological assessment painted a portrait of Charles as a loving and decent man whose brothers regard him as a mentor, Wilson observed.
"This picture of this offender painted by his family and his extended family qualify him as an ordinary citizen," said Wilson. "I see nothing in his background or his aboriginal heritage that would explain why a disposition involving him should be any different than any other drunken driver."
At the sentencing hearing last week, Joseph's mother, Denise Nelson, sat in the front row of the courtroom with her two daughters. Glen Jr.'s parents, Bonnie Charles and his father Glen Jim, sat behind them. Glen Jr.'s wife Antoinette Bob, the mother of his two children, was also there.
Victoria Times Colonist
A rallying cry to stop drinking and driving
BRITISH COLUMBIA - The week after Doreen Joseph died in a car crashed by her drunken boyfriend on Metchosin Road, another member of the Alert Bay community died in an impaired driving collision.
"You have to give your head a shake," her mother Denise Nelson said last week during a break in the Andrew Charles trial in B.C. Supreme Court. "Now I want to be a voice for other children to stop drinking and driving."
The Beecher Bay community has learned its lesson the hard way. More than four years have passed since the deaths of Joseph and Glen Charles Jr., but the crash still divides the small community. People are angry with Andrew Charles for not admitting his guilt and trying to blame his cousin for the collision.
Glen Jr.'s two young children are growing up without him and missing their father, said his mother, Bonnie Charles. His widow, Antoinette Bob, felt so strongly about testifying that she came to court when she was 35 weeks pregnant and in early labour. She has since given birth to twins, a healthy boy and girl. But on the stand, she turned her back on Andrew Charles, refusing to look at him.
Nelson wants people to know her daughter was a soccer player and a dancer who had 13 godchildren and was very connected to her native heritage. Joseph planned to become a beautician and open an esthetics business with her two younger sisters, Karen and Mary.
Instead, Nelson was awakened in the night by a phone call telling her Joseph had been killed.
"It was the worst pain one can feel, heart-ripping pain followed by emptiness. And now sitting in court, hearing and seeing my baby's last day on earth is so painful, it's like losing her all over again."
Nelson says she's been walking through fire for four years and justice has finally been served. Sitting in court, seeing pictures of her daughter's limp body on the hood of a car, has overwhelmed her with anger, pain and grief. Nelson clings to the last month she spent with Doreen.
"She said, 'I'm stronger now, Momma. You don't have to worry about me.' That's what I hung on to every day. But no parent should have to go through this kind of pain."
Victoria Times Colonist
Man convicted of impaired driving causing death in Metchosin crash that killed his girlfriend and cousin
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Andrew Anthony Charles was convicted today of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing the death of his girlfriend and his cousin in a horrific collision on Metchosin Road four years ago.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dean Wilson found Charles was driving his 1993 Colt when it struck a telephone phone just after 1 a.m. on April 23, 2005. Doreen Joseph, 20, of Alert Bay and 23-year-old Glen Charles Jr. were killed instantly in the crash.
“There’s no other rational conclusion than that the accused is guilty,” said Wilson.
The judge accepted the evidence of Raymona Peter, who hosted a small party in her trailer a few hours before the crash. She testified that Andrew Charles was drunk when he arrived that night and he continued to drink.
Peter testified that when the young people left the party she saw Glen Charles Jr. get in on passenger side of the car. She also watched Joseph go around the car and climb into the back seat on the driver’s side.
“I found Miss Peter to be a creditable and credible witness,” said Wilson. “She had a genuine sense that she was somehow responsible for what transpired. The events of that night would have been imprinted on her mind. In the opinion of Miss Peter, he was impaired by alcohol. She expressed regret she had not grabbed him and stopped him from driving because he was too drunk.”
Wilson also accepted expert testimony which put Andrew Charles behind the wheel, Glen Charles Jr. in the front passenger seat and Joseph in the back seat. Andrew Charles DNA was found on the driver’s side airbag and the driver’s side windshield. Glen Charles Jr.’s DNA was found on the passenger side mirror.
One expert testified that the massive, horrific injuries sustained by Glen Charles Jr. were caused by the telephone pole ripping the car apart. In contrast, noted Wilson, Andrew MaCharles suffered a broken wrist, laceration and abrasions.
“The accused statement is not true. He was the driver of the car,” said Wilson.
Wilson also found Andrew Charles’s driving was a danger to the public. He was impaired, he was speeding and his vehicle was defective.
Although one expert testified that the car was travelling at an average speed of 70 km/hr, Wilson said he thought the car was going more than 70/km in the area which has a posted limit on the curve of 30 km/hr. Wilson said he came to that conclusion after hearing testimony from former paramedic and retired Saanich firefighter Kent Duclos said he had never seen such a severe impact.
Andrew Charles was impaired, he was speeding and his vehicle was defective and would not have passed a a government certified inspection. It had a steering defect and the right front brake was completely worn through.
“Yet this accused launched it onto the highway,” said Wilson.
Andrew Charles will be sentenced Oct. 30. He remains free on bail. Wilson has ordered a psychological report and a presentence report.
Victoria Times Colonist
Accused was clearly behind wheel: Crown
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Common sense suggests Andrew Charles was the driver at the time of the collision that killed his girlfriend and cousin in Metchosin four years ago, prosecutor Tamara Hodge said as she began her final submissions in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday.
Charles's blood was found on the driver's-side airbag, Hodge noted. His DNA was also on the driver's-side windshield. He had a bleeding head wound embedded with glass.
And DNA for Glen Charles Jr., one of the two victims, was found on the passenger-side mirror.
Charles is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing the death of 20-year-old Doreen Joseph of Alert Bay, and Glen Charles Jr., 23.
"You know the car owned by Andrew Charles collided with a telephone pole at 70 kilometres per hour. We know three people left a party in Beecher Bay that night. We know two people died. We know the right side of the vehicle was completely destroyed and that Glen Charles had massive injuries to the right side of his body from head to toe," Hodge told Justice Dean Wilson.
Witness Raymona Peter testified she saw Andrew Charles driving the vehicle when he left a party at her house with Joseph and Glen Charles Jr. on the early morning of April 23, 2005, said Hodge. "And there's no evidence anyone in the vehicle switched positions after the car left the party."
Two experts concluded Andrew Charles was most likely in the driver's seat when the car careened into the pole. His injuries were much less severe, Hodge told the court.
An RCMP toxicologist estimated Andrew Charles's blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash was well more than double the legal limit, said Hodge.
The Crown also alleged Charles was driving in a manner dangerous to the public.
The 1993 Colt, which had a standard transmission, was in poor repair. The right front brake was completely worn out, the steering was defective, and the front tire had cords showing, said Hodge.
Charles was driving at a speed of 70 kilometres per hour on a road with a posted speed limit of 50 km/h, despite signs near the crash site indicating a curve and a reduced speed of 30 km/h.
Defence lawyer Tybring Hemphill argued, however, that only circumstantial evidence pointed to Andrew Charles as the driver that night.
Bonnie Charles, the mother of Glen Charles Jr., who testified that Glen could not drive a standard, appeared to be trying to tell the truth, but she'd had 18 beers and passed out after the young people left the party, said Hemphill, adding mothers don't know everything about their sons.
Hemphill called Peter a dishonest and campaigning witness, noting she did not give a statement to authorities for three years.
While Hemphill accepted that Andrew Charles's blood was on the driver's-side airbag, he described the expert evidence "as a house of cards, ripe with assumptions."
A dog hair was also on the airbag, said Hemphill -- "But no one is suggesting the dog was driving."
It's not wild speculation that there was a change in driver, particularly after the driver backed into a boat near Peter's trailer, said Hemphill.
Hemphill also questioned the integrity of the collision scene, showing Wilson a photograph in which the passenger door is lying on the front of the vehicle in direct contact with the airbag with Andrew Charles's blood.
Wilson will deliver his judgment at 10 a.m. today.
Victoria Times Colonist
Crown rests in impaired trial
BRITISH COLUMBIA - The Crown has closed its case against Andrew Anthony Charles, who is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.
Charles's girlfriend 20-year-old Doreen Joseph of Alert Bay, and his cousin, Glen Charles Jr., 23, a father of two, died in a crash on April 23, 2005. The main issue at the trial is whether Andrew Charles was behind the wheel at the time of the collision.
Yesterday, Justice Dean Wilson ruled that two conversations that were the subject of voir dires could be admitted into evidence.
Last week, Tara Brooks testified that when she came upon the collision scene she asked Andrew Charles who the driver had been. He pointed at Glen Charles Jr. and said "he was" or "him."
Also last week, RCMP Cpl. Marlene Martin testified that when she arrived at the crash scene, Andrew Charles was kneeling over Glen Charles Jr., who had died at the scene. Martin put her arm around him and comforted him.
On the way to the ambulance, Andrew Charles told Martin his car was involved in the collision.
When the officer and a female paramedic simultaneously asked who was driving, Charles replied "Tony," or "Tony Chipps" and pointed to the man on the ground, Martin testified. Final submissions begin this morning.
Victoria Times Colonist
Driver likely left DNA on windshield in Metchosin car crash that killed two
BRITISH COLUMBIA - The driver of a 1993 Colt involved in a fatal crash on Metchosin Road four years ago was the most likely person to leave DNA on the driver's-side windshield, an expert in motor vehicle collision reconstruction testified yesterday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Jonathan Lawrence, a mechanical engineer who has conducted technical investigations of more than 1,500 collisions, was testifying for the Crown yesterday at the trial of Andrew Anthony Charles.
Charles is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing the death of his girlfriend, 20-year-old Doreen Joseph of Alert Bay, and his cousin, Glen Charles Jr., 23, a father of two, in a crash on April 23, 2005. The Crown alleges Andrew Charles was behind the wheel at the time of the crash.
Last week, RCMP forensic lab worker Yvon de Mossaic testified that Andrew Charles's DNA was found on the driver's-side airbag and the driver's-side windshield of the car. Glen Charles Jr.'s DNA was found on the passenger-side mirror.
Lawrence testified the car was going about 70 kilometres per hour when it hit the telephone pole. The car was split open. The right passenger door was ripped off. The roof moved back.
The impact with the pole meant the car's speed dropped to 15 kilometres an hour, but its occupants kept moving at the same speed and direction, Lawrence testified.
People sitting on the right side of the car would have been struck by the pole, Lawrence testified. The left rear passenger -- who the Crown believes was Joseph -- would have bounced off the side of the pole, then hit the driver before flying through the right side of the windshield.
The left rear passenger would have pushed the driver to the left and onto the windshield, said Lawrence.
"Is it possible that the left rear passenger would leave DNA on the driver's side windshield?" asked prosecutor Susan Rupertus.
"It's not impossible, but it's unlikely because the driver would stop the left rear passenger."
Lawrence told the court drivers are not usually ejected because their feet are in a foot well and their bodies come in contact with the steering wheel and the dashboard. The driver would hit the windshield first, then the backseat passenger would hit it, said Lawrence.
"So the DNA is probably from the driver's head?" asked Rupertus.
"That's right," said Lawrence.
The expert also tested the placement of the driver's seat. Lawrence placed a five-foot tall woman -- the same height as Joseph -- in the driver's seat in the same position it was in the night of the crash.
"She could reach the pedals, but she couldn't push them with a full range of motion," Lawrence testified.
Victoria Times Colonist
Found on driver's side of car involved in fatal 2005 crash
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Blood found on the airbag on the driver's side of a car involved in a fatal crash on Metchosin Road four years ago matched Andrew Charles's DNA profile, an RCMP lab worker testified yesterday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Charles is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing the death of his 20-year-old girlfriend Doreen Joseph and his cousin Glen Charles Jr., 23, in April 2005.
Joseph's mother Denise Nelson, who carries a folder with photographs of her daughter, has travelled from Alert Bay to attend the trial. Beecher Bay Chief Russ Chipps has also come to court to support his community.
Yesterday, Yvon de Moissac, who works at the RCMP forensic lab in Halifax, testified by video that two swabs taken from the driver's-side windshield of the 1993 Dodge Colt also matched the DNA profile of Andrew Charles.
DNA found on the mirror on the passenger's side of the car matched Glen Charles, Jr.'s DNA, de Moissac told Crown prosecutor Tamara Hodge.
The DNA profiles of Andrew Charles and Glen Charles Jr. are both extremely rare, he said.
RCMP Cpl. Marlene Martin was recalled to the witness stand yesterday by prosecutor Susan Rupertus. The Crown is challenging the admissibility of evidence given Tuesday by witness Tara Brooks in a voir dire -- a mini-hearing. Justice Dean Wilson will decide whether Brook's testimony can be admitted as evidence.
Martin testified that when she arrived at the crash scene on April 23, 2005, Andrew Charles was kneeling over Glen Charles Jr., who had died at the scene. Martin put her arm around him and comforted him. Then Charles went over to Joseph, whose body was on the hood of the car.
On the way to the ambulance, Andrew Charles told Martin his car was involved in the collision.
When the officer and a female paramedic simultaneously asked who was driving, Charles replied "Tony" and pointed to the man on the ground, Martin testified.
Andrew Charles was placed in the back of the ambulance. He asked Martin to phone his mother and gave her the phone number. "He told me the deceased woman was his girlfriend, Doreen Joseph of Alert Bay, and that he was from Beecher Bay," testified Martin.
Under cross-examination, Martin told defence lawyer Tybring Hemphill she has no recollection of seeing Brooks at the scene.
Victoria Times Colonist
Court: Widow of Metchosin crash victim cries on stand, turns back on accused
BRITISH COLUMBIA - The widow of a young man killed in a car crash on Metchosin Road four years ago cried Wednesday as she took the witness stand in B.C. Supreme Court.
A very pregnant Antoinette Bob turned her back on Andrew Anthony Charles, who is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death in connection with the April 2005 crash. Charles’s girlfriend 20-year-old Doreen Joseph, and his cousin, Glen Charles Jr., 23, died in the crash.
Crown prosecutor Susan Rupertus told Justice Dean Wilson that Bob, who is 35 weeks pregnant with twins, was in the early stages of labour. After about 30 minutes, her testimony had to be adjourned while she was taken to hospital by B.C. Ambulance paramedics.
Bob testified that she had lived with Glen Charles Jr. from 1997 until his death in 2005. The couple had two children, Lillian, who is now six, and Glen Jr., who is five.
Asked by Rupertus to identify the accused, Bob did not even glance in Charles’s direction. She continued to cry until defence lawyer Tybring Hemphill assured the court identity was not an issue.
Bob testified that on the night of April 22, Glen Jr. was invited to a party at Raymona Peter and Brad Charles’s trailer on the Beecher Bay reserve. Bob, who was not drinking that night, stopped in at the trailer a few times during the evening to check on Glen Jr.
“I saw a lot of drinking at Brad and Mona’s,” she testified.
Andrew Charles was drinking, said Bob. “He was pretty drunk. He wasn’t standing straight.”
After Bob was taken to hospital, Wilson asked the court clerk to replay evidence given by Peter earlier this week about the party at her trailer the night of the crash. Peter testified that Andrew Charles was going to drive Glen Jr. to a bootlegger in Esquimalt for more alcohol, but the plan upset Joseph.
If they were going to go, Joseph wanted to go with them so she could tell Andrew Charles to slow down if he was speeding, said Peter, who heard the couple arguing outside.
Before they left, Joseph came into the trailer, wearing one shoe and looking for her other shoe and her purse, said Peter.
“She said, ‘I’m stronger than I was before.’ She also said she was leaving Andrew,” said Peter.
Glen Jr. jumped into the passenger seat. Joseph walked around the car and got in the back seat on the driver’s side behind Charles, said Peter.
Under cross-examination by Hemphill, Peter insisted Glen Jr. could not have been driving that night because he didn’t know how to drive a vehicle with standard transmission.
Peter appeared to resent Hemphill’s detailed questions about what she saw and heard that night.
“All I remember is the tragedy that happened,” said Peter. “It’s bothering me because all this happened at my place, you know.”
Victoria Times Colonist
Metchosin Road double-fatality trial opens
Accused in 2005 crash identified victim as the driver, witness says
BRITISH COLUMBIA - Tara Brooks crouched beside a man sobbing in the middle of a horrific crash site on Metchosin Road on the early morning of April 23, 2005, the Camosun College student testified yesterday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Brooks was testifying at the trial of Andrew Anthony Charles, who is charged with two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing the death of his girlfriend, Doreen Joseph, and his cousin Glen Charles Jr., both in their early 20s.
Brooks told the court that minutes earlier, she and her boyfriend had driven by a dead dog in the centre of the road, realized something was wrong and pulled over.
"I saw a white car very damaged. I saw two bodies, a telephone pole split in half," said Brooks.
Then she saw Charles walking toward the scene. Thinking he might be in shock from witnessing the crash, Brooks walked over to him and suggested they move to the other side of the road.
"But he crouched down four or five feet from the car. I crouched down as well.
"He started crying. That's when I saw the blood dripping onto the ground. I realized he must have been in the crash as well," Brooks testified.
She put her arm around the man to comfort him. "It felt like a dream," Brooks told Crown prosecutor Susan Rupertus.
The trial moved into a voir dire -- a mini-hearing on the admissibility of evidence -- while defence lawyer Tybring Hemphill asked Brooks about her conversation with Charles that night. Justice Dean Wilson will decide whether her testimony can be admitted as evidence.
Brooks said she remembered Charles saying "Oh my God!" and reaching out and gently resting his hand on the body of Glen Jr. for a few seconds.
"I understand you asked him who the driver was? I understand you have some familiarity with a case where it was uncertain who the driver was. You thought it helpful to ask before anyone else became involved?" Hemphill asked.
Brooks confirmed that when she asked Charles who the driver had been, he pointed at Glen Jr. and said either "he was" or "him." She also asked whether they had swerved to miss the dead dog on the road.
"He said, 'That's my dog,' and he started sobbing more," Brooks testified.
At that point, she said, an officer arrived. Brooks said she moved away but looked back at Charles, who seemed to be seeing Joseph for the first time.
"I heard him moan and say 'Oh my God' again," she testified.
Ramona Peter testified that Charles, Glen Jr., Joseph and another woman had arrived at her trailer on the reserve earlier that night.
"They were pretty drunk when they got there," said Peter. "I remember it being late and them trying to get more alcohol, but it was already after 11 p.m."
Charles was swaying as he stood in the doorway, Peter testified. Glen Jr. wanted to go to a bootlegger in Esquimalt. Charles was to drive.
But the plan led to a fight between Charles and Joseph. She asked to be dropped off with friends in Victoria, Peter said.
Peter testified that she saw Glen Jr. in the passenger seat. Charles was in the driver's seat. He moved his seat forward as Joseph climbed into the back, she said.
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