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After causing the fatal crash, St-Hilaire “did not stop to call for help, to offer assistance, to check on the fate of the man he had struck when he drove on the shoulder of the roadway,” prosecutors said, and he should be guilty of failing to stop at the scene.

Granger countered the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that St-Hilaire either knew he had struck somebody, or that he had been “wilfully blind” to the collision.

St-Hilaire testified in his own defence after pleading not guilty to both counts. He entered a guilty plea on arraignment to a related charge of obstructing police.

The Crown detailed the evidence that led to that charge in explaining St-Hilaire’s motivation for leaving the scene of the crash, suggesting he had been drinking more than the single glass of wine he claimed in testimony he had consumed that night “for toasting purposes.”

Miles told the judge there was evidence of St-Hilaire’s truck weaving across the fog line and back in traffic camera footage captured just before 6 a.m., showing he was awake and correcting his “erratic” driving in the seconds before the crash. There was no sign of brake lights.

St-Hilaire testified he wasn’t tired when he got behind the wheel early that morning, retrieving his truck in Barrhaven following a wedding after-party at his mother’s house, and he had “inexplicably” fallen asleep when was awakened by a loud bang, and realized he was driving about a metre into the paved shoulder.