TORONTO

At long last, after a tortuous court proceeding, drunk driver Sabastian Prosa is finally going to jail.

But probably not for long. Handed just a five-year prison term for killing two people in a horrific head-on crash, there’s little doubt the 22-year-old aspiring doctor will soon be out on bail again if he decides to launch an appeal. And even if he doesn’t, parole could be as close as 20 months away.

Is this what justice looks like?

Not to a brother who lost his father and sister in that senseless head-on collision three years ago.

“I ask all Canadians: Do you honestly believe this is real justice received for the deaths of two people and injuries to another? Because I don’t,” demanded Brian Wijeratne outside a downtown courthouse Tuesday afternoon.

“The Canadian justice system is all too lenient on this issue,” he insisted. “It is disgusting and disrespectful to all lives lost to this violent crime.”

Prosa, 19 at the time, was driving with almost twice the legal alcohol limit when he made a sudden U-turn on Hwy. 427 and slammed his GMC Envoy into the Wijeratne minivan as the family headed home from a Florida vacation in the early hours of Aug. 5, 2012. Jayantha “Neil” Wijeratne and his 16-year-old daughter, Eleesha, were killed and his wife, Antonette, was severely injured.

Prosa tried to blame his dangerous driving on a mysterious “club drug” that somebody must have slipped into his drink while he was partying with his friends in downtown Toronto. But following a trial by judge alone, Superior Court Justice Glenn Hainey rejected that ridiculous story and convicted him on all 12 charges in June.

Last month, Crown attorney Tom Goddard asked for a virtually unprecedented eight-year prison term for Prosa. While the judge acknowledged that sentences have been increasing for cases of impaired driving causing death, he wasn’t prepared to send the first offender away for such a long stretch.

“This case is a terrible tragedy for all concerned,” Hainey told the crowded courtroom. “No sentence that I impose can undo the tragic consequences of this collision or compensate for the loss of Jayantha and Eleesha and the permanent injuries suffered by Antonette.”

He said a five-year prison term, as well as an eight-year driving ban, was stiff enough to deter others while allowing the “excellent prospects for rehabilitation” for Prosa — who has an “otherwise excellent character” and whose drunk driving was “clearly out of character.”

Hainey also commended Prosa’s expressions of remorse in his pre-sentence report but never noted that when given the opportunity to address the court — and the family he decimated — he chose not to say a word.

“We’ve seen no remorse at all,” Antonette Wijeratne said in an interview. “From the very beginning, there was no condolence for my family. He wasn’t remorseful at all.”

And now he goes to prison for five years where he will barely unpack before he’s eligible for day parole after doing as little as a sixth of his sentence. Just look at former Maple Leafs captain Rob Ramage — he received his get-out-of-jail-free card after serving just 10 months of a four-year term for killing former Chicago Blackhawk Keith Magnuson.

Of course the Wijeratne family is outraged.

“I’m not pleased with the sentence at all,” Antonette told reporters as she held the last photo taken of her husband and daughter, a picture taken with them all smiling in Florida. “He took two precious lives and I am permanently injured. It will never be enough ... (but) I expected more.”

Her son, who didn’t travel with the family on the fatal trip, insisted the sentence isn’t enough to deter other drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel. Almost two weeks ago, three children and their grandfather were killed in an alleged impaired-driving collision.

How many more must there be?

“This kind of violence continues to happen on a daily basis,” he said. “This pattern of carelessness and needless death needs to change. Our laws need to change.”

For after decades of education, the message is still not clear: killing someone while driving drunk is not an accident. It’s not a mistake. It’s a crime.

And it’s about time the punishment was made to fit it.

michele.mandel@sunmedia.ca