Man granted bail, despite two failures to appear

A man has been granted bail with stringent conditions after failing to appear in court twice in relation to a fatal crash.

"The primary issue is securing his appearance in court," provincial court Judge Randall Callan told the court Thursday.

"And I am going to order you a release with very strict conditions based on previous failures to appear."

Inderjit Singh Sidhu, 40, has pleaded guilty to one count of driving without due care and attention on Jan. 28, 2013 on Highway 97, near Hixon.

A Surrey man died at the scene in a collision involving two tractor trailer units.

On July 19, Sidhu, who lives in Calgary, said that he did not appear for sentencing because Highway 16 East was closed due to a traffic accident.

But Crown prosecutor Marie-Louise Ahrens had checked with DriveBC and the RCMP and it was determined that there were no closures along the highway as well as on Highway 5 and Highway 1 to the Alberta border.

Prior to this, Sidhu did not appear in court on May 25 saying that he thought he was to have appeared on the 26th, even though it was a Saturday.

Sentencing is now scheduled to take place on Aug. 15.

Defence counsel Keith Aartsen said that despite missing his last appearance, Sidhu's actions were unintentional.

"He did turn himself in, this was not deliberate," Aartsen said.

"What he did was voluntary. He has now been incarcerated for one week. If that doesn't teach him a lesson..."

Ahrens disagreed with that assessment.

"He breached his obligation and then popped up the next day and says 'I'm here,'" she said.

"This conduct should not be rewarded. In terms of sentencing, nothing suggests he will be here on the 15th."

Sidhu was granted $5,000 bail with firm restrictions allowing him to stay in Prince George under house arrest while residing with his cousin.

He is also required to follow a number of conditions while continuing to report to the bail supervisor regularly until sentencing.

Sidhu did have an accredited interpreter available on July 19 but he did not have one available on Thursday.

Although not qualified as a court interpreter, Callan allowed Sidhu's cousin to be sworn in and he was seated in the witness box to assist with any language barriers.