Man sentenced in hit-and-run that killed 7-year-old Ukrainian girl in Montreal

The motorist who struck and killed a young Ukrainian evacuee in Montreal in 2022, was sentenced on Wednesday morning.

Juan Manuel Becerra Garcia, 46, pled guilty in May to failing to stop after an accident. He received a 12-month suspended sentence in the community, followed by a year of probation. Specifically, the first six months of the sentence, he will be under house arrest 24/7 and can only leave for work. After that he would be under a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. He also cannot drive for two years.

“I once again offer my sincere apologies to the family,” said Becerra Garcia in Spanish after the hearing at the Montreal courthouse. “Secondly, apologies to all the people who have been touched by this incident.”

Seven-year-old Mariia Legenkovska was hit by a vehicle on December 13, 2022, while walking to school with her siblings in the Sainte-Marie district.

The driver of the Jeep Grand Cherokee left the scene and turned himself in hours later.

Becerra Garcia maintains that he never saw the girl, as the sun was blinding at the time. He heard a noise and said he felt a bump, but when he looked in his mirrors, he saw nothing and continued on his way.

He was subsequently charged with leaving the scene, but not with dangerous driving, as the investigation concluded that it was an accident.

In court on May 9, Becerra Garcia, who has children of his own, offered an apology to the girl’s mother, telling the family that the pain he caused them will stay with him forever. “I commit to carry with me the memory of your daughter and to honour her life,” he said in a speech translated into French and Ukrainian. “I hope that with time you can find the strength to forgive.” 

The prosecutor and defence jointly suggested a sentence to be served at home, followed by probation and a driving ban for a few years.

Mariia and her family moved to Montreal just a few months before she was killed in 2022 – to escape the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Her father, Andrii Legenkovska, was fighting for Ukraine’s territorial defence forces when she was killed, and he travelled to Montreal from the front lines to bury his daughter.

‘Broken families in both cases’

On Wednesday morning, defence lawyer Éric Coulombe saying after Bercerra Garcia addressed the media that, “there are broken families in both cases.”

“The message to pass on to the public is that when you hit something, you don’t necessarily know what it is, especially in an urban area, but you have to stop. You have to get out of your vehicle and see where it’s coming from. […] Today, that’s his biggest regret. He blames himself for not seeing her, but the sun was unfortunately blinding him. But he should have. He should have gone a little further, but he should have done more than check the mirrors. He should have gotten out of his car and made sure there was nothing there. And it wasn’t until afterwards, when he saw the news and heard that there was a hit-and-run in Montreal. […] But initially, we were looking for a white vehicle. So it wasn’t him we were looking for. He turned himself in to the Longueuil police.”

Coulombe adding that the sentence is individualized. “That doesn’t mean that another defendant would get the same sentence. Maybe another defendant would get a sentence with firm prison time.”

Crown prosecutor Sylvie Dulude says that with the sentencing, Mariia’s mother is “at peace with what’s happening.”

She was not in court on Wednesday, but Dulude adds that she spoke to her on several occasions and what she was waiting for the accused to acknowledge what he did. “I think she’s going to be able, and we sincerely hope, to grieve and go on living with her children.”

Dulude explains that the judge accepted the 12-month suspended sentence, “he considered that this was not a person who was a danger to society. And because [Bercerra Garcia] has no previous criminal record, the risk of [reoffending] was qualified as very low or even totally neutral.”

Adding that house arrest is strict, “really strict.”

“The judge said that for the first six months of his probation, he would have to stay at home 24 hours a day, every day of the week, except for legitimate paid work. Obviously, the aim of the sentence is to rehabilitate the individual. So that’s it for the first six months. For the next six months, they would have to respect a curfew and could continue to work to be an asset for society. And the judge gave a big warning at the end and said that if he didn’t comply with each of the conditions of his suspended sentence, if he didn’t respond, for example, to a call from the surveillance officer, that there would be a registered breach and that the prosecution could have a warrant authorized on a breach. And I think the accused understood the warning very well.”

-With files from The Canadian Press