Love From Heaven

"The group was drinking and driving all day.  Notwithstanding the constant and significant publicity with respect to drinking and driving, the attitude displayed is that of total disregard for the dangers created by impaired driving.
"...the degree of his disregard for the safety of others is shown by his consumption of alcohol while driving.
"Her two sons have been deprived of the unconditional love of their mother. the impact of this loss on their lives cannot be measured now or ever, but can only be described as devastating and life altering."
Ontario Court Justice Celynne Dorval

And so a 24-year-old man - old enough to know better, but convinced he was in control and was capable of performing however he must, in the process of proving how much in control he was, killing a 29-year-old mother of two children - has been sentenced to five years in prison.  Four years for impaired driving causing death, another year for failing to remain at the scene of the crash.  And banned from driving for ten years once his five-year sentence is completed.

Nothing in life is ever as simple as it seems at first glance.  Jeremy Rees, now sentenced to prison for his disdain of the law, failed to remain at the scene of the crash for a very good reason, in a sense.  He risked, had he remained, being battered insensible by the young woman's boyfriend who had been accompanying her, walking along the road as they exited a pub, preferring to walk their way home rather than drive, since they too had been drinking.

Not only had they been at the same pub as that where Jeremy Rees and his chums had been drinking steadily, but in fact, Erin Vance's boyfriend, Justin Hammond, had been drinking that evening with his friend Jeremy Rees at that bar in Constance Bay.  Jeremy Rees, glassy-eyed, stumbling and slurring his speech was in no condition to drive.  He and his friends had quite a day of it, binge drinking for over 12 hours straight.

The group had downed a case of beer then drove to a motorcross track, then went off to the bar.  Jeremy Rees in fact had a history of that kind of reckless disinterest in public safety.  In 2008 his vehicle had been impounded as a warning against drinking and driving.  He has been three times convicted of speeding, and on that fateful St. Patrick's Day night on March 17, 2012, was speeding when he lost control of his car.

In a victim impact statement Erin Vance's mother described how fearful the two little boys are now about losing their grandparents who are raising them.  Janet Vance described how it felt to have to tell the five-year-old twin boys that their mother would "love them from heaven".