Drunk driving trial enters final stage

The trial of a man accused of killing two young people in a drunk driving crash with an ATV is entering its final stage in a Hamilton court.

The defence is arguing that there isn’t enough evidence for the crown to convict their client.

The accident happened on a December night in 2012 when a pick up truck ran into an ATV carrying two people and a dirt bike with one person on board on the Six Nations reserve.

18-year-old Gwen Martin was killed on the ATV, while 15-year-old Will Harris of Hagersville was killed on the dirt bike.

With the alleged driver on trial, the Harris family says there was evil at work.

“Evil, i think he’s an evil man. Hopefully we got some justice,” says Will’s father Randy.

“God doesn’t do stuff like this, evil does. You try to protect your kids from evil but evil was there that night and killed my son and killed Gwen,” says his mother, Beth.

41-year-old Travis Squire-Hill was arrested and charged. The question facing the judge is whether he was actually driving the pick-up.

Crown Prosecutor George Orsini says Squire-Hill had no business driving anything that night. He had two court orders not to drive and he was supposed to be in jail on another matter.

But he says the evidence shows Squire Hill was driving the truck minutes before the collision. There was a smell of alcohol, and Orsini says the only reasonable explanation is that he was driving at the time of the collision.

Squire-Hill repeatedly denied to police that he was driving, and told them there were two other people in the truck but he didn’t want to “rat” them out for fear of retaliation in jail.

His defence lawyer said there’s no DNA evidence or any other proof Squire-Hill was driving.

Will Harris’ family is waiting for the judge’s decision on what happened to Will that night.

“We have to live our lives know that he never gets a chance to live his life, you cant fix that,” says his brother Dawson.

“He took my best friend and my little brother away. Hopefully justice is served so this can stop from happening, so no one else has to go through the same stuff that we have to go through,” says his sister Hillary.

The judge is expected to bring down his verdict on Friday.