The bus driver on trial for dangerous driving causing death over a “horrific” multi-vehicle crash in Mississauga, Ont., three years ago has been found not guilty in a judge-alone trial.
The collision happened on June 8, 2023, in the area of Derry and Rexwood roads.
At the time, police said a Miway bus had collided with several vehicles that were stopped, with 50-year-old Sharron Williams declared dead and several others injured.
Baljeet Dhaliwal, the transit operator, pleaded not guilty.
On Friday morning, Justice David E. Harris handed down his decision, finding her not guilty of dangerous driving causing death.
In his judgment, Harris said Williams was waiting in “bumper-to-bumper traffic” for the light to turn green when she was killed.
“There was no forewarning and nothing she could have done to avoid it,” he wrote. “It was a cruel bolt from the blue.”
It was approximately 9:25 a.m. on June 8, 2023, when police were called to the multi-vehicle collision.
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Williams, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of a Nissan Rogue, was killed as a result of the collision, which was caught on dash camera. The bus could be seen plowing into two rows of cars stopped at a red light.
Harris described the widely circulated video of the crash shown at the trial.
“A shocking video from a neighbouring vehicle’s dash cam shows that the bus driven by Ms. Dhaliwal, without apparently slowing down, rammed into the line of cars at significant speed, causing a devastating chain reaction, crushing numerous cars in its path,” he wrote.
“The bus did not stop or even slow down. It ploughed pell-mell into Ms. Williams’ vehicle at full speed.”
The judge said there were two reasons the crash could have happened: Dhaliwal was distracted or the brakes on the bus she drove were faulty.
Dhaliwal did not testify in her own defence, but her lawyers argued the brakes on the bus she was driving failed, and she had to use a hand brake to eventually stop the bus.
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A mechanic for the Crown testified that the brakes on the bus were working at the time of the collision, but the defence called that witness unreliable.
The Crown also told the judge it was their theory that the brakes were working, but Dhaliwal didn’t apply them due to a “pattern of inattention” on the day of the deadly crash.
In his final decision, the judge called the series of events “bewildering.”
“Taking all the evidence together, the mystery of what caused this accident has not been solved. Brake failure remains a viable possibility,” Harris wrote.
“Contrary to this, proof in a criminal case requires a high degree of certainty as expressed in the beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Reasonable doubt must be excluded. That standard, in my view, has not been achieved. The Crown has failed to convincingly remove brake malfunction as the cause of the collision.”
Sharon Williams’ son, Danny, spoke with reporters outside the courthouse
“I don’t think justice was served, but there’s nothing you can do, the system is just not set up properly,” he said.
“A lot of things could have been done differently, right?”
— with files from The Canadian Press
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