A Quebec man charged with drunk driving and criminal negligence in a dramatic rollover crash that seriously injured a teenager in Burnaby in June 2020 is scheduled to appear in a Vancouver court Thursday after seven months on the lam.
Burnaby RCMP responded to a report of a single-vehicle rollover at Gilmore Avenue and Halifax Street at about 1 a.m. on June 5, 2020, according to a police news release at the time.
Upon arrival, officers found an unconscious 18-year-old woman outside a black Dodge Durango that had landed upside-down after hitting two hydro poles, a light standard and a traffic light, the release said.
The woman, who had been a passenger in the vehicle, was taken to hospital in serious but not life-threatening condition, according to police.
Police said the suspect driver had fled the scene, but officers located him nearby and arrested him.
Nearly a year later, in May 2021, Moussa Daoui was charged with failing to stop after an accident resulting in bodily harm, impaired driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
But Daoui skipped his first court appearance on June 22, 2021, and a Canada-wide warrant was eventually issued for his arrest, according to a Burnaby RCMP news release Thursday.
Police finally caught up with him in Laval, Que. last month, and he was shipped back to B.C. on Jan. 27, the release said.
Daoui, 33, is scheduled for a bail hearing in Vancouver provincial court Thursday afternoon.
“Despite the suspect leaving the province while under investigation for this crash, our investigators never gave up on ensuring he would face these charges in a B.C. courtroom,” said Burnaby RCMP Cpl. John Hargreaves with Burnaby RCMP’s criminal collision investigation team. “We are also grateful to our partners at Laval Police (Service du police de Laval) for their assistance in this file.”
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