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Before the car accident, her teacher described her as a very bright student, in the top two per cent of her media-arts high school class who dreamt of being a filmmaker or actress.

After the accident, Alissa Afonina, who has been awarded more than $1.5 million in damages due to a brain injury, was a very different girl and eventually ended up working as a dominatrix.

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She showed no impulse control, could not carry through on tasks, became isolated and began to have outbursts and make inappropriate sexual comments, her B.C. Supreme Court trial heard.

In his ruling on damages, Justice Joel Grove noted that the pre-accident Afonina was in some ways a typical girl, in some ways an atypical girl, someone who described herself as a “goth girl” with “artiste presentation.”

But all that changed in the wake of the August 2008 motor vehicle accident.

Afonina, who was about to enter Grade 12, her mother and her brother were passengers in a vehicle being driven by her mom’s former boyfriend, Peter Jansson.