LangleyAdvance
Musical homecoming
pg A15
Your community newspaper since 1931
Friday, March 4, 2011
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Courts
CAMELLIAS Just arrived!
Elderly driver spared jail sentence
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An 88-year-old man who ran down and killed a flag person won’t be spending any time behind bars.
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Family of Terry Mitchell were distraught and angry Thursday morning, after learning that the man who killed Mitchell will serve only two years of probation. Melle Pool, 88, was handed a suspended sentence, along with a driving ban and some community service, by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce in a New Westminster courtroom. He pleaded guilty last year to dangerous driving causing death. Mitchell died on Feb. 25, 2008, when he was working for Valley Traffic Systems on a work site along River Road just east of Fort Langley. Pool, who had been driving without a licence since 2001, didn’t even see Mitchell, only braking after he hit the 52-yearold Pitt Meadows man. Pool had last seen an eye doctor in 1996, had macular degeneration, and had vision worse than 20/200 in both eyes, Bruce noted in her decision. Yet he continued to drive to Fort Langley, believing he was safe because he only drove at 30 km/h, and because he could see the yellow lines down the centre of the road. Pool was usually driving to pick up groceries for himself and his wife. “There could also be an ele-
Postmedia Network Inc. photo
After the sentencing, Alison Stacey, widow of Terry Mitchell, spoke to the media outside B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster. ment of pride in his decision,” Bruce said, noting that Pool grossly underestimated the safety hazard he represented every time he got behind the wheel.
Despite his lengthy period of driving without a licence, Bruce decided not to give Pool a jail term as the Crown had requested. Pool shows remorse, has plead-
ed guilty, and is needed to take care of his ailing wife, Bruce said. “He often sits for hours each day alone in the basement of his house,” she noted. She also implied that a jail sentence could be fatal for him. “In my view, regardless of the sentence imposed, a jail term would be a life sentence for Mr. Pool,” Bruce said. He would likely have to be kept in isolation to avoid becoming the target of other inmates. Mitchell’s widow, Alison Stacey, cradled a picture of her husband and cried as the judge announced her decision. “I’m shocked and horrified by the decision,” Stacey said outside the courthouse. Pool was risking the life of everyone in Fort Langley every time he drove there for years, she said. She also blamed Pool’s family for not stopping him. “The family knows that he shouldn’t have been driving, and they chose to do nothing about it,” she said. The lack of a prison term “seems to be suggesting that Terry’s life was worth nothing,” she said. Mitchell had no children, but he had five siblings and more than two dozen nieces and nephews. “To not be able to see our brother, it’s unacceptable,” older brother Les Mitchell said. In addition to his probation and a year of curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., Pool will have to do 15 hours of community service, speaking publicly about the dangers of continuing to drive as an elderly person with physical disabilities.
Traffic
Officer hurt after dump truck slams into cruiser The truck driver was ticketed for failing to stop at a red light. by Matthew Claxton mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
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A Langley RCMP officer was taken to hospital after his cruiser and a dump truck collided at Glover Road and 216th Street Thursday morning. The unmarked police car was heading north on 216th Street, crossing Glover Road to Crush Crescent, when a westbound dump truck hit him
just after 11 a.m. Police said the officer was conscious and was taken to hospital with undetermined injuries. He was to be released from hospital later in the day and is expected to recover. The dump truck driver was not hurt. It appears that the police officer was driving through a fresh green light, when the dump truck hit the car’s passenger side, said Cpl. Holly Marks, the spokesperson for the Langley RCMP. The intersection was closed in all directions
as police investigated the crash, and the train tracks that parallel Glover Road were also temporarily shut. Both the Integrated Collision Analyst Reconstruction Service, and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement Inspectors were on the scene. The dump truck driver was given tickets for failing to stop at a red light, an insecure load, and failing to display a national safety code sticker. This is the second serious accident of the year in Langley involving a dump truck. In January,
Troy Landreville/Langley Advance
Mounties blocked off Glover Road while investigating Thursday’s crash involving a dump truck and unmarked police car at the intersection of 216th Street and Glover Road. Jim “D.K.” Neiss, a 59year-old bus driver for Langley School District, was killed on 16th Avenue
by a dump truck that police say was passing other vehicles on a double yellow line.