A Newmarket man has received a six-year sentence for impaired driving causing the death of a five-year-old child in 2018.

Kamau Davis-Locke spent the night of Aug. 3 drinking with friends during the Caribbean Carnival festival, court was told.

Although he didn’t sleep all night, he did stop drinking hours before and took a nap before deciding to drive back to Newmarket the next morning to return his mother’s Volvo. His mother, Andrea Davis, is a professor at York University.

At about 7 a.m. on Aug. 4, while driving along Davis Drive, west of Keele Street, in King Township, Davis-Locke fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the centre line.

He caused a catastrophic four-car smash that killed Lux Peyton Gomez, 5, and sent nine people to hospital.

Lux’s mother, Abby, was taken to hospital along with Lux’s two brothers, then ages 11 and three, and father Mark, who suffered life-threatening injuries. The family, from Scarborough, was heading to the beach.

The car’s inboard computer found that up to five seconds prior to the crash, Davis-Locke’s vehicle was travelling 144 km/h in a 60 km/h zone.

His defence argued it was the act of falling into a “micro sleep” that resulted in Davis-Locke’s “involuntary depression” of the accelerator.

This suggestion was not accepted by the court.

Justice Peter Tetley said that although Davis-Locke pleaded guilty, was remorseful and took responsibility for his actions, there were many aggravating factors. He killed a small child, causing her parents “never-ending grief,” and was driving with a G2 licence which doesn’t allow any alcohol in a driver’s system.

He added the decision to take Lux off of life-support had to be taken without the parents’ consent, as they were themselves being treated for injuries.

The police investigation found Davis-Locke’s breath test showed 87 mg of alcohol per 100 mL of blood after the crash, meaning he would have been at about 137 mg per 100 mL of blood at the time of the crash.

Although Davis-Locke, who read out a heartfelt statement in court, does not have a criminal record, he had received a speeding ticket three months prior to the crash.

Neither of Lux’s parents wanted to speak following the sentencing Tuesday. Court was told that Lux, who was renowned for her singing and dancing, wanted to be a doctor.

Tetley spent a significant amount of time speaking about the ongoing issues around drunk driving in York Region, stating that over the past few years, the region has witnessed 1,000 motorists charged with impaired driving, totalling 20 per week.

“York Region residents should be appalled,” he told the court, suggesting, while it might not be an aggravating factor, it does reinforce the need for denunciation and deterrence.

However, Davis-Locke’s lawyer, Jacob Stillman, said he finds this type of thinking suspect, adding he doubts the message gets through to those who need to be deterred.

“I don’t think the evidence is there that the ever-increasing harsh sentences have the deterring effect, because they always come from spontaneous and ill-conceived decisions,” he said. “They (drunk drivers) are not weighing the consequences and doing the math . . . They are making convenient, often selfish, expedient decisions.”

The sentence is more harsh than four other impaired causing death convictions in York Region in 2019. Christopher Singh and Seyed Tolouei, received sentences of 5.5 and 5.9 years, respectively. Tyler Nielsen and Shanshan Xia were sentenced to five and 5.5 years, respectively.

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Stillman further questioned if his client’s level of blameworthiness is as high as some others convicted of the same crime.

“I am quite confident that when he got in the car, he would not have had a subjective awareness that he was still actively impaired by alcohol,” he said. “It’s important to note that that’s not a defence and it doesn’t excuse his actions, but to my thinking, in circumstances where there’s been a significant gap between drinking and driving and a period of sleep, that is different from a person who gets in their vehicle immediately or very shortly after a heavy bout of drinking and partying.”

Davis-Locke was also sentenced to four years for each of two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm. Those will be served concurrently alongside his six-year sentence.