After over three years before the courts, the driver of an SUV involved in a head-on collision that killed two young women
near 8 Wing Trenton has been found guilty on all charges.
Friday in Superior Court in Belleville, Aysar Younes of Quinte West, 23 at the time of the collision, was found guilty of
two counts of dangerous driving causing death and two counts of impaired driving causing death by Madam Justice Kristin
Muszynski.
Court heard evidence that a GMC Yukon driven by Younes was going west on Old Highway 2 near RCAF Road at 12:25 p.m. October 3, 2021 when
it suddenly crossed the centre line colliding head on with a Nissan Versa in the eastbound lane.
Both occupants of the small car, 22-year-old Rebecca Beatty of Quinte West and 23-year-old Anastasia Collins of Belleville, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Younes was taken to Kingston General Hospital for treatment by its trauma team for hip and hand injuries.
In earlier court sessions, witnesses to the crash described it as happening suddenly, “at the blink of an eye.” None of the witnesses noticed anything
unusual in the seconds leading up to it.
Data retrieved from the vehicles showed Younes’s Yukon was moving at either 98 or 99 kmh in a 60 kmh zone right up until the impact with the car. The data showed the brakes had not been applied but the steering had changed drastically.
The Nissan was shown to be going 71 or 70 kmh up to impact with the brakes being applied just one second before impact, with the steering wheel being yanked to the right, suggesting the driver tried to avoid the collision at the last second.
The collision caused debris to fly over a wide area and that stretch of highway was closed for an investigation for hours.
Court heard that Younes had joined a group of around 12 friends for a cottage party north of Kingston on the afternoon of October 2 and that
all participants drank through the evening and into the early morning hours of October 3. One witness said no one at any time appeared extraordinarily intoxicated. Younes was up until 4:30 a.m. and admitted to consuming cocaine at some point during the gathering. Younes departed the cottage before 9 a.m.
Meanwhile, all witnesses to the collision, including OPP officers and paramedics, testified they could not smell alcohol on Younes’s breath and all said he was confused, distraught, and in shock immediately after the collision. A paramedic had gotten him out the rear of his vehicle and to the side of the highway.
Younes was rushed to KGH, arriving at 1:55 p.m. Medical staff records show an intravenous drip was started at 1:56 p.m. and as is common practice, a blood order was made at 1:57 p.m. and blood was drawn at 2 p.m.
The blood was drawn in vials, labelled and immediately sent to a lab at KGH.
Test results showed a blood alcohol content equivalent to 110 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80 mg/100 ml. Younes’s samples were retested three weeks later at another lab and the results were almost exactly the same as at Kingston General.
Younes’s defence suggested none of the KGH medical staff could actually remember blood being drawn from Younes and suggested the vials could have been mislabelled, that the samples might have been contaminated and suggested that since the specimen fridge at the hospital’s lab was never locked, samples may have been tampered with. They proposed those possibilities would cause reasonable people to doubt Younes’s guilt.
However, Justice Muszynski in her almost two-hour-long reasons for decision statement said she found all witness testimony to be credible, that she found the record-keeping by KGH medical staff to be “accurate and timely”, and that the staff went about their work in a standard and professional manner.
She rejected the defence’s claims that there could have been a “mixup” or “contamination” in the testing procedures.
She said Younes had been drinking heavily and using cocaine for hours the day before and into the day of the crash. She accepted as true expert testimony that driving abilities can start to be impaired at 50 mg/100 ml blood and she accepted that because of “alcohol tolerance” a person might not show symptoms of drunkenness even at 110 mg alcohol/100 ml blood but that the person’s ability to drive would still be seriously compromised.
Justice Muszynski said Younes chose to drive and had even admitted to a doctor that he’d had some trouble staying awake on the day of the collision.
She also pointed to Younes driving at almost 40 kmh over the posted speed limit during her decision on dangerous driving causing death.
Representing the Crown were Michael Lunski and Monica Rodrigues while the defence was headed by Craig Bottomley.
The matter now goes to assignment court April 17 where a date for sentencing will be set. A full day will be set aside for sentencing.
