April 02, 2014 - 1:02 PM
KAMLOOPS - A Kamloops man who has never held a driver’s licence but has been busted behind the wheel five times in the last three years has been convicted of killing a pedestrian.
Donald Isadore, 63, was found guilty Tuesday of one count of failing to yield to a pedestrian stemming from the death of a woman who was walking on a green light at a crosswalk in November 2012.
A police officer testified 66-year-old Valerie Brook's body was thrown up to 9.5 metres and that there was no evidence of Isadore having applied the brakes before she was struck.
Brook’s family filled half the courtroom as Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame read her verdict.
Loralie Loewen, Brook’s youngest daughter, said she wasn’t surprised to hear Isadore was guilty.
“It would be pretty disgusting if he wasn’t found guilty, but it doesn’t help the situation, really,” she said outside court.
“I think we’re all still so blown away that we’re not going to get any closure.
“It’s one of those terribly unbelievable things you wish would never happen to anybody you know.”
Lawyers will return to court on April 10 to set a date for sentencing, which will likely take place in June.
The Crown is seeking a jail term for Isadore, who has a lengthy record of driving offences despite never obtaining a licence other than a learner’s permit he held briefly in the 1980s.
Less than three weeks before Brook was killed, Isadore was handed a 30-day jail term and fined $500 for a separate driving-while-prohibited conviction, which also saw him placed on a two-year driving ban.
In 2011, he was jailed for 14 days for another driving-while-prohibited conviction.
And, following Frame’s decision this week, Isadore pleaded guilty to two additional charges stemming from separate incidents in January 2013 — weeks after Brook was killed.
Loewen said she thinks Isadore deserves to go to jail.
“You do something illegal, get someone killed, then yes.”
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014