A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
A verdict falls short
It happened one day last summer. I think I had just finished mowing the lawn, when a police cruiser motored up the driveway. A couple of Durham Regional Police officers stepped out. My wife and I exchanged a surprised glance.
“Are you Ted Barris?” one of the officers asked.
“Yes…” I answered a little nervously.
“I have a summons here for you,” he continued, “in connection with an automobile collision last year.”
I realized I was being subpoenaed for a court appearance at the trial of the woman who had t-boned me on Dec. 30, last year. At first I wondered why. It seemed to me one of those so-called open-and-shut cases. You may remember my column from exactly a year ago. I was driving north up Thickson Road in Whitby. I had entered the intersection at Rossland on a green signal. And, wham! A one-ton pickup truck hit me broadside on the passenger side, sending my car and me spinning through the intersection.
Long story, short: I got a few cuts, got patched up in the hospital, and went through a few weeks of physiotherapy. My 2000 Toyota Corolla was a write-off. But other than property damage, that was it. The attending police officer told me it would be some months, but I might be expected to testify in court. So, that's why the summons had arrived.
The subpoena showed that the woman was charged with a count of “careless driving” and another for operating “an unsafe vehicle.” And I remembered - as she and I were both being taken to hospital in the same ambulance last year - she'd said her brakes failed. At any rate, six months after the subpoena and a year after the crash - just before Christmas - I arrived in front of Courtroom 101 at the Ontario Court of Justice in Whitby. There was no sign of the Durham officer who'd attended the case. Nor were there any of the witnesses I knew had told the cop I had the right-of-way.
There was just the Crown attorney. And she asked me to recount my side of the story. I explained what I remembered of the crash. Then, I pointed out that one of the witnesses had told me later, the woman in the pickup truck had been on her cell phone.
“What?” the Crown said. She looked as if I'd just delivered the Perry Mason coup de grace. She said she didn't have that information and would I consider postponing the case so that she could subpoena the witness with that information.
“I'm not a vindictive person,” I said. “I just want to see justice done.”
The Crown asked me to wait while she consulted with the attending police officer who had just arrived. The officer and Crown finally explained that the woman who'd hit me was being represented by an agent (one of those retired law enforcement people who represents defendants to plea bargain). The officer said that my witness who claimed he'd seen the woman on her cell phone did not want to testify. There hadn't been loss of life. He feared a number of lengthy court appearances and told the officer he couldn't afford the lost work. So it looked as if the woman who hit me (she never did show up) had successfully pleaded guilty on the “unsafe” count and avoided the “careless” count.
I felt offended by the results. But what happened next stopped me in my tracks. I was suddenly aware that there were two other women outside the courtroom in the circle receiving the news about the plea bargain.
“I'm sorry,” I said to one of the women. “I don't know who you are.”
“I was in the car your car hit in the intersection,” she said.
“Of course. The pickup hit my passenger side and spun me into your car,” I said and paused. “Were you OK?”
She nodded and then the other woman spoke. “You mean the truck hit you and your car crashed into my daughter's car?”
I nodded and looked right into the eyes of a thankful mother. She was on the verge of tears. “You mean the truck hit your passenger side and if you hadn't been there, the truck would have hit my daughter on her driver's side,” she said.
I suddenly saw the crash from a completely different perspective. I had lost my car, received a few stitches and some physio. I remember the attending cop saying, a year ago, if someone had been sitting in the front passenger's seat of my Corolla, there would have been a fatality.
I smiled a half-hearted smile. I immediately forgot the plea bargain and my lost car. I hugged the two women and wished them a Merry Christmas. I concluded that they and I had ultimately come away winners … no matter what the outcome in Courtroom 101.
