In the News

Woman found guilty in crash that killed girl
National Post, with files from Postmedia News
By Katherine Laidlaw and Tiffany Crawford
July 27, 2010

DELTA, B.C. — A B.C. woman was found guilty on Tuesday of four criminal charges relating to a 2008 drunk-driving incident that killed a four-year-old girl.

Alexa Middelaer died, and her aunt, Daphne Johanson, was severely injured, when Carol Berner’s car hit the pair, who were feeding a horse along the side of a Delta, B.C. road on May 17, 2008.

Surrey Provincial Court Judge Peder Gulbransen found Berner, 58, guilty of all four charges: impaired driving causing death; impaired driving causing bodily harm; dangerous driving causing death; and dangerous driving causing harm.

Feeding a horse she had nicknamed “Horsey Love” from a purple basket at the side of the road with her aunt in East Ladner, B.C., as her grandparents watched from their Honda, an Oldsmobile swerved off the road, hitting Alexa, then Ms. Johanson, then the car holding her grandparents. The Oldsmobile then struck a hydro pole before stopping near Alexa’s home, where she lived with her parents and eight-year-old brother, Christian.

The car struck the little girl so hard, it knocked her out of her red shoes. Ms. Johanson suffered multiple injuries, including a head injury; broken and crushed bones; internal bleeding; missing teeth; and soft-tissue injuries to her face. She did not wake up in hospital for three days. After spending four weeks in hospital, she was in a wheelchair for four months.

“We couldn’t have been out of the car more than a minute,” Ms. Johanson told the court.

In court, Judge Gulbransen said there was “no other rational conclusion” than that Berner was impaired at the time of the crash. The court heard she was driving at 91 km/h in a 50 km/h zone with speed bumps. Berner, who left the courtroom expressionless, is expected to be sentenced at a hearing in November.

The decision ends a case that rocked the community. Berner was not charged until Dec. 10, 2008, when she was pulled over at an intersection by an unmarked police car. At the time of the accident, she said she consumed two glasses of wine earlier in the day but maintained it was her car that was at fault, saying it was swerving out of her control.

Police launched a controversial undercover investigation dubbed Project Angel in October 2008 to determine if Berner was criminally culpable. She believed she became close friends with an undercover female officer and male officer, posing as a couple looking to move to the Delta area.

Crown prosecutor Kim Wendal told the court that in an audio- and videotaped conversation, Berner admits to the female officer that she had consumed at least three glasses of wine before driving that day. “I’m saying at least three fair-sized glasses, but there was some left in the bottle,” Berner says on the tape, recorded at a Surrey hotel in November 2008. She also says she was fine to drive.

Berner pleaded not guilty to the charges, but did admit through her lawyer that she was driving the car at the time of the collision.

During the trial, Berner and defence lawyer David Tarnow fought to have her statements to Delta Police Constable Sarah Swallow and the results of the two breath samples given at the crash scene excluded. Judge Gulbransen ruled against her.

They argued the evidence should be dropped on the grounds that she was detained in a police car for 30 minutes following the accident without being advised of her right to retain counsel, and because Const. Swallow lacked reasonable grounds to demand a breath sample.