A man who drove five-and-a-half kilometres in oncoming lanes of Highway 1 traffic and collided head-on with a minivan carrying a young family faced a judge this week at his sentencing hearing.
North Vancouver provincial court Judge Steven Merrick heard Thursday how Craig Ford, 48, of Nanaimo, terrified at least 22 adults and seven children in separate vehicles during his approximately four minutes of reckless driving in West Vancouver while high on the drug GHB.
Ford has pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
“The amount of danger he created at 7 o’clock at night on a very busy highway . . . is unbelievable,” said Crown prosecutor Ron Edwards.
In the early evening of March 12, 2014, several westbound drivers encountered Ford’s white panel van travelling east towards them, along the stretch of highway between the Cypress Bowl Road and Capilano Road exits.
At one point Ford appeared to be driving faster than the vehicles on the other side of the highway, according to one Crown witness report.
Another driver was forced to make a split-second decision to swerve into the vehicle next to him, in order to avoid hitting Ford head-on at a combined speed of 180 km/h, said Edwards.
In another frightening account, a driver recalled how Ford repeatedly mimicked his actions when he tried to swerve out of harm’s way.
Ford’s trail of terror came to an abrupt end near the Capilano River bridge when he collided head-on with a minivan carrying a family of four, leading to a chain reaction crash of a third vehicle.
A witness at the scene recalled seeing the heavily damaged minivan with the airbags deployed and a toddler being held by her screaming mother.
The youngest victim, a 2½-year-old girl, was taken to hospital with a fractured shoulder that required surgery. Her parents suffered soft tissue injuries and continue to suffer physical and psychological problems related to the crash a year later, said Edwards.
Ford’s toxicology results from that evening showed a significant concentration of the recreational drug GHB — a central nervous system depressant with “euphoric and sedative properties” — in his system.
The Crown asked for eight months’ jail time plus two years’ probation in the case.
Ford’s defence lawyer, Brian Mickelson, asked for a 90-day intermittent jail sentence to be served on weekends to allow Ford to continue his inpatient drug rehabilitation program. He also stressed that this is Ford’s first offence.
In an apology letter submitted to the judge, Ford stated: “I am horrified by the circumstances of the collision and the enormity of the damage and disruption I caused.”
A decision is expected May 15.
