A distracted driver and former arsonist who caused a crash that killed a man south of Penticton last year will pay $1,500, be prohibited from driving for 18 months, and spend zero days behind bars.
Joseph McArthur-Pereira, born in 1991, appeared in B.C. Provincial Court in Penticton Monday to learn his sentence.
On Sept. 29, 2022, he was behind the wheel of a camper van heading north along Highway 97 towards Penticton.
McArthur-Pereira was not legally allowed to be driving the van at the time. He was a learner, required to have an appropriately-licensed adult driver with him while operating the vehicle, but he was alone.
As he was driving, he heard a noise in the back of his van, and turned over his shoulder to see what had happened. The van swerved across the road into the oncoming lane, crashing into a motorhome heading south that contained a middle-aged couple who had just recently moved to the area to pursue the next chapters of their lives.
McArthur-Pereira was thrown through his windshield, suffering a lacerated liver and partial amputation of his thumb, and after a year of rehabilitation, now walks only with a cane.
But the man in the motorhome died of his injuries, leaving behind his wife who, to this day, describes herself as still feeling lost and unable to pick up the pieces of what happened.
She spoke in court Monday.
"I have experienced every emotion and right now I am angry-grieving. I am angry at [McArthur-Peirera] because that morning he had no regard for anyone else other than himself," she told Judge Shannon Keyes ahead of sentencing.
"He made seriously poor decisions that day and drove despite only having a learner's license and being in breach of conditions that he was supposed to follow."
McArthur-Pereira has spent the last year in a forensic psychiatric hospital, while also in recovery from his crash injuries.
He had previously been found not-criminally responsible due to mental illness for an alarming arson incident at the Osoyoos RCMP detachment in July 2019.
At the time, he told the court he set fire to the police station because he wanted to "liberate the souls of people” trapped inside the detachment.
After the fatal vehicle crash, he told Judge Keyes that he had tried to overdose while in hospital, "because I took the life of a good man whose friends and family loved him."
Judge Keyes said Monday that there is no easy answer in a situation like this — nothing that will bring the victim back, or heal the wounds to the surviving family.
But it was, she added, an accident.
"What I am sentencing is 'driving without due care and attention.' That is what led to the crash. Hearing a bump in the van, turning his head around. Shouldn't have done it. Not sure how many of us can say [...] that we've never turned our head around when something happens in the back seat," Keyes said.
"But in this case, having done so took him into the opposing lane of traffic and caused a crash."
She noted that McArthur-Pereira has been effectively incarcerated since the incident, as the forensic psychiatric facility is not a come-and-go situation.
Therefore, she decided on no prison sentence, opting for 18 months' driving prohibition and a $1,500 fine.
The widow of the man killed had her own hopes for McArthur-Pereira's future.
"I truly hope that this haunts him for the rest of his living days. And I hope that it takes away some of his life and some of his peace knowing that he killed someone."
