A Windsor college student who was driving a car that crashed south of Oil Springs has pled guilty to four charges.
Jovanpreet Singh appeared in court June 1 to enter the guilty plea for three counts of dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death, and one count of dangerous operation of a vehicle causing bodily harm.
The four counts of criminal negligence laid after the crash in Oct. 2020 were withdrawn.
Oct. 3, 2020, the OPP, Dawn-Euphemia and Oil Springs fire departments and Lambton EMS were called to the curves on Oil Heritage Line at Aberfeldy Line. A sedan had veered off the highway in the curve and flipped several times into a field on the west side of the road.
On June 1, court heard Singh was a student at St. Clair College. He was working at High Park Farms in Enniskillen.
On Oct. 3, his shift ended earlier than expected and he left in his 2014 BMW 28X with the vanity plate Jovan13 20 minutes early.
In the car with him were four co-workers, Harmanpreet Singh Sidhu in the front, Tanveer Singh, Gurvinder Singh and Harpreet Kour were in the backseat. They were not wearing seat belts, court heard.
The roads were wet as Singh headed south on Oil Heritage Line. He passed a Chevy Cruz doing 210 km per hour according to court documents. With the rain and high speeds, Singh was not able to negotiate the curve. Court heard the car struck a stop sign and then a tree, “rolling violently multiple times” and
“The three occupants in the back seat of the vehicle were all ejected at different times along the path the vehicle travelled as it left the roadway, and they came to a rest in three separate locations.” They were pronounced dead at the scene. Sidhu was injured. Singh was found walking around at the scene, court heard.
An audio file showed the driver of the Cruz had asked “What happened? You were going 200…why did you need to speed so fast?”
Singh was arrested and charged 21 days later.
Singh returns to court Oct. 4 for sentencing. So far, there have been no victim impact statements filed.
