BEAVER BANK: A 22-year-old Beaver Bank man found out his sentence Jan. 10 for an Oct. 18, 2015 collision on Beaver Bank Road that killed two friends and left a third with serious injuries.
Anthony Lloyd Gregory Cox was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail by Judge Alanna Murphy for each of the impaired driving causing death charges and two years for causing bodily harm.
He had pleaded guilty in the fall to three charges in connection with the crash. On Jan. 10, Dartmouth provincial court Judge Murphy handed down her sentence to Cox, accepting a joint recommendation from the lawyers involved.
In the Local Xpress article on Jan. 11, it says the court heard that Cox got behind the wheel of his friend’s car after consuming four beer and four shots of vodka over a six-hour period. Cox wasn’t supposed to be driving any vehicle, after having his licence suspended.
Despite having three friends with him in the car, he chose to drive at a speed of at least 125 kilometres an hour on Beaver Bank Road in a 70 km-h zone. The Honda Civic spun out of control on a curve and crashed into a ditch at about 1:30 a.m.
Gregory Goulding, 21, the owner of the car, died in the back seat of the vehicle.
Danielle Hudson, 22, was thrown from the vehicle and was declared brain dead in hospital the next day. She was kept on life support for another day until her organs could be harvested for donation.
Miranda MacIsaac,19, was also ejected from the car but survived her injuries. Those included a collapsed lung, ruptured spleen, a fractured vertebra, and a shoulder fracture.
According to Local Xpress coverage of the court proceedings, Cox was alert and walking around when RCMP arrived at the crash scene. He told the officers that he wanted to be honest and informed them that he had been drinking.
Officers detected an odour of alcohol on Cox’s breath and arrested him on suspicion of impaired driving.
Blood samples were taken from Cox at the hospital and were sent off for testing by a forensic toxicologist. The testing determined that at the time of the crash, Cox’s blood alcohol level was between 99 and 119 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, above the legal limit of 80 milligrams of alcohol.
Murphy sentenced Cox to 54 months in prison on each charge of impaired driving causing death and two years for causing bodily harm and made the terms concurrent.
The judge also prohibited Cox from driving for five years after he is released from prison and ordered him to provide a DNA sample for a national databank.
