By Canadian Press

Truck driver in fatal Humboldt Broncos bus crash to be sentenced

Mar 22, 2019 | 10:55 AM

MELFORT, Sask. — A truck driver who caused the deadly Humboldt Broncos crash is to be sentenced in a Saskatchewan courtroom today.

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu of Calgary pleaded guilty earlier this year to 29 counts of dangerous driving.

Sidhu barrelled through a stop sign and into the path of the junior hockey team’s bus at a rural Saskatchewan intersection last April.

Sixteen people were killed and 13 were injured.

Inflation

Rent inflation to slow in the next few years, Desjardins predicts

14m ago

Fire in Nipawin area

Fire destroys house in R.M. of Torch River

1h ago

Election results

New and familiar faces elected during municipal election in Northeast communities

2h ago

The Crown wants the 30-year-old sentenced to 10 years in prison, while the defence says other cases suggest a range of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years is appropriate.

Sidhu’s lawyers have said he is remorseful and is likely to face deportation to his home country of India after he serves any time.

A sentencing hearing in January heard that Sidhu was going between 86 and 96 km/h when he passed four signs warning him about the upcoming intersection before he came up to an oversized stop sign with a flashing light.

Crown prosecutor Thomas Healey said Sidhu should have seen the busy highway in front of him or a car that was stopped across the road and waiting for the Broncos bus to pass.

He described the truck as a rocket that barrelled into the intersection, which gave the bus driver no time to avoid the crash.

Defence lawyer Mark Brayford said Sidhu was hired by a small Calgary trucking company three weeks earlier. He spent two weeks with another trucker before heading out on his own for his first time.

Brayford suggested Sidhu was distracted by a flapping tarp on the back of his load of peat moss.

— Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press