GUELPH – A driver who crashed into an oncoming vehicle on Woolwich Street in 2021, putting a 14-year-old girl to hospital for months, wasn't the only one responsible.
That driver previously pleaded guilty in relation to the crash. On Tuesday a jury found a second driver who the prosecution believes was racing with the other vehicle guilty as well.
Following a nearly three-week long trial in Guelph Superior Court, Adnan Refaeh of Puslinch was found guilty of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and failing to remain at the scene of a collision involving bodily harm.
In the lead-up to the crash, Refaeh, 21, and a Kitchener driver previously convicted in the case were seen travelling at a high rate of speed with little space between them.
“This was a race, not a chase,” said assistant Crown attorney Peter Keen in closing submissions, referring to the defence argument that Refaeh feared for his life and was trying to escape the other driver. “That is simply unbelievable.”
The injured girl was in the back seat of a third vehicle, which was struck head-on when a white Cadillac driven by Mitchell Nodwell of Kitchener pulled out from behind Refaeh’s black BMW into the oncoming lane shortly after 8 p.m. on May 15, 2021, near Powell Street.
Sentencing submissions for Refaeh are set for Feb. 8, with sentencing to follow at a later date.
“He made mistakes that a 19-year-old can make,” defence attorney Brian Starkman said of his client, who was 19 at the time, referring to engaging the Cadillac driver by revving his engine when they met at the intersection of Gordon Street and Wellington Street, facing north toward downtown.
Refaeh testified his reciprocative revving wasn’t an indication of agreeing to race, but rather a mutual demonstration of the power of their vehicles. He told the court he nonetheless tried to keep up with the Cadillac after it sped off when the light turned green, but eased off the gas a few blocks later.
He said it turned into a chase after he passed the Cadillac at the five-points intersection (where Woolwich meets with Norfolk and Norwich streets), while it was in the left turn lane. The Cadillac instead continued north, right behind Refaeh.
“That is the behaviour of someone deliberately participating in a street race,” Keen told the jury, referring to Refaeh revving his engine and hitting the gas when the light at Wellington turned green.
Seven witnesses who saw various aspects of the interaction along Woolwich Street referred to it as a “race” during testimony and another opted not to use that term but noted they travelled at a “ridiculous” speed – something Keen urged the jury to keep in mind as they deliberated.
“There’s a reason everyone described it as a race, not a chase,” Keen said, noting there’s no evidence to back up Refaeh’s claim he feared for his life.
In the distance between the five-points and Powell, witnesses told the court they saw the BMW travelling at a high rate of speed with the Cadillac tight on its bumper, occasionally pulling alongside and then backing off and pulling back into its proper lane.
On one occasion, the vehicles touched but kept going, court heard.
At one point, Refaeh testified, a passenger in the Cadillac reached out the window and tried to touch the BMW.
He was scared for his life and felt going faster was his only way to escape, he told the court.
Not so, Keen said in his closing remarks.
“That’s not the behaviour of someone who is frightened. That’s the behaviour of someone trying to win a race,” he said, pointing to a large aerial map at the front of the courtroom and showing each intersection Refaeh could have turned and disengaged the Cadillac driver. “(At every intersection) his choice was to continue the race.”
As the vehicles approached Powell, the Cadillac pulled up close to the BMW’s bumper and pulled into the oncoming lane.
That’s when the head-on crash happened that sent the young passenger to hospital, followed by others.
The Cadillac hit a VW Jetta head-on, then struck a parked vehicle. In an effort to avoid the crash, a minivan also struck a parked vehicle.
Refaeh testified he stopped briefly, but decided to leave the scene because he feared the Cadillac driver and its passenger would attack him.
In the days after, Refaeh admitted in court that he tried to cover up his involvement with the crash, deleting an older photo of his car from his Instagram account, removing undermount lights, having a mechanic come to his home to do repair work and driving his father’s car to work.
“His family let him down. They gave him terrible advice which he acted upon,” Starkman said, noting some of that advice came from his older sister, who was a Peel Regional Police officer at the time.
Court heard police didn’t test the Cadillac driver for impairment, despite recovering a variety of drugs at the scene that included crack, cocaine and methamphetamine. In addition, no collision reconstruction was done to gather evidence about the crash and the speeds involved.
The white Cadillac was driven by Kitchener resident Mitchell Nodwell, 26. He pleaded guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice last December to dangerous driving causing bodily harm, as well as possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking. Last July he was given 30 months in jail.
