The owner of a Calgary trucking company involved in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash last April pleaded guilty to non-compliance charges in a Calgary court on Wednesday morning.
Sukhmander Singh of Adesh Deol Trucking was facing non-compliance charges under federal and provincial safety regulations.
On April 6, the Humboldt Broncos team bus and a transport truck collided on a Saskatchewan highway killing 16 people and injuring 13 others
The charges against Singh included; failing to maintain logs for drivers’ hours of service, failing to monitor the compliance of a driver under safety regulations and having more than one daily log for any day.
The driver of the truck, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, was charged with 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. He was sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this month.
Singh was not in court for the proceedings but pleaded guilty to five of the eight charges through his lawyer on Wednesday morning.
“He did not want all the media attention. He’s already lost his job, he’s unable to work as a trucker so he just wanted to resolve this matter and leave it behind him,” said Lawyer Sadaf Raja. “This wasn’t a criminal act, it wasn’t a criminal wrongdoing. He was the owner of the company and unfortunately he had employed a particular driver that was involved in this accident so although they seem like they’re tied, they’re not really directly tied.”
The judge in the case said 'this is the end of a very, very sad tale' and Singh was fined a total of $5000.
Logan Boulet, from Lethbridge, was killed in the crash and his father Toby released a statement following the guilty plea saying…
“The levels of fines is inadequate and the driver of the company is irresponsible. This makes many legitimate trucking companies look bad.”
Singh has until the end of 2020 to pay the $5000 fine.
