Hamilton man gets 4 years in prison, driving ban for collision that killed 11-year-old child
Published April 5, 2022 at 5:34 pm
The Hamilton motorist who pleaded guilty to striking and killing 11-year-old Jude Strickland 16 months ago has received prison time and a driving ban from a judge.
On Tuesday, according to multiple reports, 29-year-old Brandon Aubert received a four-year prison term and eight-year ban from driving as consequences for the fatal collision. On an overcast afternoon on Dec. 1, 2020, a Dodge RAM truck that Aubert was driving struck Strickland at a crosswalk on Upper Gage Avenue near near Royal Vista Drive while the child was headed home after a day at Templemead Elementary School.
Jude Strickland, who just that morning had been shovelling snow with his father, died from his injuries about 33 hours after being hit. He is survived by his parents, Vanessa and Jamie, and a play structure bearing his name is being installed at Eleanor Park on the East Mountain.
Court documents indicated that Aubert entered a guilty plea to dangerous driving causing death for driving 69 km/h in a 50 zone; he also went through a red light and ignored a crossing guard.
Following the loss of young life, a petition was started to lower the speed limit in that area to 40 km/h. In February of this year, Hamilton city councillors voted in favour of staff report suggesting that reduction. A span of Upper Gage Ave. will also have the speed limit lowered to 30 km/h as a community safety zone.
Aubert was present for a virtual sentencing hearing three weeks ago when seven victim impact statements were heard by the court.
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“Thinking of what you have been dealing with and will continue to deal with breaks me to the core,” he told the Strickland family and the court, according to reports in Hamilton media.
“It doesn’t matter what length of sentence I get because I will live with what happened the rest of my life.”
The sentencing came on the same day that Hamilton had its seventh pedestrian fatality within the first 95 days of 2022.
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