The families and friends of two young women killed due to dangerous highway driving endured another setback Friday just as they were about to detail the devastation of their loss.
Austin Deir was first charged with impaired and dangerous driving causing the deaths of Haley Keating and Erin Pretty, both 22.
The head-on collision occurred just before 3:30 p.m. on January 21, 2024, on the TCH near Arnold’s Cove.
But the impaired charges were later withdrawn when he pleaded guilty to the others.
Deir, 72, had a few drinks the night before the crash, and took lorazepam for anxiety the next day some time before it happened, with police and witnesses saying he showed signs of being impaired.
Unable to prove he was, the Crown asked Judge Andrew Brown to at least view the alcohol and medication as aggravating factors for a stiffer sentence.
But in his decision on Friday, Brown declined to do so, chalking up Deir’s behavior to his own injuries and shock, adding blood samples drawn four hours later were unreliable and the meds had no “tangible impact” on his driving.
Haley Keating (left) and Erin Pretty. (Facebook)
The ruling came just before Erin Pretty’s mom delivered her victim impact statement, at times struggling to convey, to Deir in particular, how his actions destroyed their family.
“Unless you live through this, you have no true understanding of the magnitude of this pain,” said Lisa Pretty, “a pain I can honestly say I only wish on one person. You took everything from me.”
Outside, TV footage showed Deir navigating, along with his family and lawyer, through a gauntlet of the victims’ angry family and friends.
Lisa Pretty’s victim impact statement was just the first of almost 50 testimonials of grief and loss still to come, when the sentencing hearing resumes in early December.
