Laval daycare bus crash trial opens with not-guilty plea, disturbing video of incident

It was an emotional day for parents and witnesses in the fatal bus crash into a Laval daycare two years ago.

Monday marked the start of the trial for Pierre Ny St-Amand, accused of driving a city bus into the Garderie Educative Ste-Rose on Feb. 8, 2023, killing two children and injuring six others.

Some parents with children present that day were in the Laval court for the trial, which saw the 53-year-old Ny St-Amand plead not guilty to charges that include second-degree murder and assault with a weapon. Inside the courtroom, the plea was met with gasps and some cries.

Both the Crown and the defence are arguing he was not criminally responsible for his actions, after two experts independently concluded he should not be held criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. It was announced in February the Crown and defence would present the facts of Ny St-Amand’s case jointly.

The judge-only trial included a detailed recounting of the facts, some of which were being heard for the first time.

Muffled screams and sobs were again heard when surveillance video of the crash — shown from the perspective of the driver — was shown. The judge even warned parents beforehand, and invited them to leave the courtroom if they felt incapable of reliving the incident.

The video, which is under a publication ban, shows the driver make a hard turn into the driveway of the Laval daycare and accelerate, engines revving, into the building’s side. The bus ended up lodged into an area where four- to five-year-olds were during drop-off time.

Ny St-Amand, who wore a grey sweater and appeared with his hands handcuffed in front of him, watched calmly as video of the crash played on a television suspended from the ceiling.

The video shows that St-Amand was on his usual route and wasn’t driving dangerously before the incident. In a summary of facts read by a prosecutor, the court heard that Ny St-Amand never hit the brakes as he headed down the driveway. Instead, he sped up.

“Once in a straight line into the parking lot, he accelerates toward the west side of the building,” the prosecutor said.

The first few hours of the trial gave little indication of what led the accused to commit his alleged act. He had been assigned the bus route by an automatic system and had not requested it, the court heard. A video from the bus cameras, taken earlier in the morning of the crash, showed Ny St-Amand picking up and dropping off passengers in a normal way.

Once he crashed, he is then seen stripping naked before being restrained by parents, including parent Mike Haddad, who held him until police arrived.

“After watching that video, that was very hard for us, especially for me,” Haddad said afterwards. “That was my first time seeing it. It reminded me a lot of stuff that happened that day. It was very hard to watch. I was shaking a bit.

“The fact that the accused didn’t have any response or anything, that was very hard to see.”

‘Travesty of justice’

Haddad was one of the first to arrive on scene and help save children who were pinned under the bus. He said being in court has been retraumatizing, and said the accused’s not-guilty plea was proof “the system is not very well protected for us.”

Fellow parent Sébastien Courtois called the not-guilty plea a “travesty of justice.”

“It’s quite bizarre because, once again, we were possibly expecting him to admit his guilt because here we’re not talking about criminal responsibility, we’re not talking about any responsibility. We’re talking about guilt, and … in the end, no, he pleads not guilty.”

Superior Court Justice Eric Downs will preside over the hearings and will make the final decision on Ny St-Amand’s criminal responsibility. The trial is expected to last another day or two.

Even if Downs were to uphold the evidence of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, there will still be some debate, since the Crown wants Ny St-Amand to be declared a “high-risk accused,” which the defense opposes.

A high-risk declaration results in the accused being detained in a restricted hospital setting and assigns a greater role to the courts than that normally assigned to the Mental Disorder Review Board.

–With files from The Canadian Press