‘Clear message’ to drunk drivers

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This article was published 04/06/2024 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every day has been hard for Sukhwinder Gill since his wife was killed by a drunk driver nearly a year and a half ago.

The 48-year-old father of 15-year-old twins is still in shock after Sarbjit Gill, 42, was killed in a collision at about 12:20 a.m. on Dec. 10, 2022.

“I loved her so much, and she loved me,” Gill said in a victim impact statement read in a Winnipeg court Tuesday. “We would talk about how we would spend the rest of our life together, and now she left me halfway through life. I pray to God that nobody else will lose their loved ones in this way.”

The driver, 22-year-old Nicholas Primo Baldovi was handed a six-year prison sentence and 10-year driving ban by Court of King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne after Baldovi pleaded guilty to one count each of dangerous driving causing death and impaired driving causing death.

Baldovi had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood after his pickup truck slammed into the passenger side of Gill’s SUV at 143 km/h while she was making a left on a green turning light from eastbound Inkster Boulevard onto King Edward Street.

It was a 70 km/h zone. Gill died at the scene.

Champagne said impaired driving deaths and injuries are too often considered by some to be “tragic accidents.”

“This was not a tragic accident. Mr. Baldovi committed serious criminal offences … A significant sentence is required to send a clear message to Mr. Baldovi, and more importantly, the community at large,” Champagne said.

Sarbjit Gill was travelling home from a shift at a Canada Post processing plant — a second job she’d picked up around the holiday season.

Baldovi had attended a Christmas party with members of his boxing gym, where he was drinking. He said he did not remember the collision, in which his vehicle ended up in a ditch.

Baldovi was taken to Health Sciences Centre by paramedics, who smelled alcohol on his breath. The next morning, a doctor told him what happened.

He was arrested but not initially charged by Winnipeg police at the hospital. They subsequently got a warrant for medical records to determine Baldovi’s blood-alcohol level was more than double the legal limit.

Baldovi was charged after he turned himself in to police in August 2023, after the investigation determined he was at fault for the fatal collision.

Gill, who attended the hearing with his children, family and supporters, said Baldovi should have received a harsher sentence.

“In six years, he will be out, while my wife, she never came back … We respect the court decision, we are OK with it, but there should be more years, so there’s an example for other people,” he said.

Crown prosecutors Nick Reeves and Melissa Schrader had recommended a six-year prison stint and 10-year driving ban.

Baldovi’s defence lawyer, Kate Smith, asked for three-to-five years behind bars, plus a five-to-seven year driving ban, noting his cooperation with authorities, his immediate plan to plead guilty, and his remorse over his actions.

Reeves read out victim impact statements from Gill, the couple’s children, Eknoor and Balnoor, and the victim’s youngest brother Jasvir.

Gill wrote that he has changed emotionally since the death of his wife, who held their family together, and he now needs to attend to the needs of his children and his aging parents alone.

The family had saved up enough money to purchase a new house, with the possession date just a few months after her death. It is hard for them to stay there, knowing how happy she was to see it being built, the grieving father wrote.

Sarbjit Gill, who was a teacher in India before the family moved to Canada in 2012, worked at a Winnipeg daycare and helped her children with their school work, something her husband finds difficult to do with his level of English.

Eknoor said he dreams of his mother but the dreams usually turn into nightmares.

“My father used to have the biggest smile, but now he is rarely smiling or in a state of happiness,” said Eknoor’s statement.

Defence lawyer Smith pointed to Baldovi’s lack of a prior criminal record and reputation as a hardworking man of good character with a supportive family, as among the mitigating factors for the judge to take into account.

Baldovi had been studying to become a nurse and worked as a lifeguard. More than 30 people wrote letters of reference about his character.

Smith said Baldovi has since been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, among other mental health issues, and told a forensic psychologist of his suicidal thoughts.

While detailing his remorse, Baldovi noted he taught the couple’s children swimming lessons in 2019 at a city pool where he worked.

He spoke at length and asked Eknoor and Balnoor whether they remembered him from those lessons, as dozens of his family members and friends sat in court.

“I have destroyed a family and taken away a mother to her two children. I have brought irreversible damage that no family should endure by my poor judgment,” said Baldovi.

He said he has gone to the collision scene on the tenth of each month to lay flowers and is haunted by Gill’s death.

“If I could go back and change the outcome of that night, that maybe Sarbjit could have lived and I would have died instead, there would be no hesitation in my decision,” Baldovi said.

He apologized and said although he would beg for their forgiveness, he would understand if they hated him.

Baldovi said when he is released from prison, he plans to speak about the consequences of drunk driving.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca