The mother of a young man who was killed when the vehicle he was riding in crashed in Pointe-Claire asked a Quebec Court judge to be lenient when he sentences the impaired man behind the wheel when the tragedy happened.
Julien Ségaux, 21, of St-Lazare, pleaded guilty in August to impaired driving causing the death of 16-year-old Noah-Leewis Mercier, his best friend. Mercier was just days away from his 17th birthday when the Honda Civic crashed around 4 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2021. He died three days later in a hospital. The crash occurred close to the overpass where des Sources Blvd. meets Highway 20.
The fatal crash made headlines because Mercier was the stepson of Quebec MNA Marilyne Picard.
The first person to address Judge Jean-Jacques Gagné on Thursday was Mercier’s mother, Marie-Christine Parent.
“Help Julien and give him the help he needs,” Parent told Gagné, adding she doesn’t feel Ségaux caused her son’s death.
She repeated a couple of times that she felt both young men made “bad choices” when they got into the Honda Civic that night.
“Noah is dead and we can’t bring him back,” she said. “I don’t see how prison (for Ségaux) will help him.”
Parent went on to say she lost two sons in a matter of months when her elder son, Eliot Mercier, 19, died after he was run over by a truck in the Sud-Ouest borough on Nov. 1, 2022.
She said Eliot and Noah were both close to Ségaux.
“On my behalf and on behalf of my son, I ask you for leniency,” Parent said. “(Noah) was not able to watch people suffer. He would come to their aid. I don’t hold (Ségaux) responsible. I think he’s had enough. It’s how Noah would want it.”
Ségaux also testified on Thursday, describing Noah as “very cool. He probably knew me the best.”
“I think that if my friends heard my story, they won’t repeat the same error,” he said.
Gagné is scheduled to deliver his decision in March.
Prosecutor Sylvie Dulude argued Thursday that only a prison sentence would address the requirements for a sentence to denounce what the offender did and to deter others from doing the same. She recommended a prison term of two years less a day. She told Gagné that if Ségaux were older and if he and Noah weren’t such close friends she would have asked for a three-year sentence.
Defence lawyer Robert Israel argued for a sentence to be served in the community.
He noted how Ségaux’s sisters made a statement to the court saying that he is already living a life sentence knowing that he ended the life of his closest friend
The attorney also said that, because of his injuries, Ségaux was unable to return to John Abbott Colege to resume his studies and has been unable to find a job.
“What does it serve to put him in prison,” Israel asked.
Picard delivered a victim-impact statement on behalf of her family through a videoconference and said Noah’s death had been especially difficult on her older stepson, Eliot.
“You can understand that there is no pain stronger than to lose a son and his brother,” Picard said, adding two people in her family have “major depressions” and one requires medication to treat the diagnosis. Three members of her family avoided going out in public, even for family gatherings, after Noah died, Picard said.
“Three of us suffer post-traumatic shock, for example, hearing police knock at the door, hearing the phone ring to announce bad news, to look at a highway with fear and to be on Highway 20. Some of these (fears) are still present after three years,” Picard said. “Four of us had difficulty concentrating at work or in school two years after the drama.”
According to a joint statement of facts entered into the court record when Ségaux pleaded guilty in August, Noah was living in the Gaspé region with his mother and he left, on Dec. 16, to visit family and friends, including Ségaux, in the Montreal area. Hours before the crash, Noah played video games with Ségaux in their family home. They left the home at 3 a.m. Ségaux’s father later found three large open beer cans in the basement.
An hour after Noah and Ségaux left, a witness saw the Civic they were in as it sped along des Sources Blvd., heading toward Highway 20. The witness lost sight of the Civic but spotted it later on Cardinal Ave. and noticed it was badly damaged. At some point in between, the Civic left the roadway, continued along a grass-covered area, struck a concrete barrier and was lifted in the air before it dropped several metres away onto Cardinal Ave.
Noah was stuck inside the vehicle and firefighters had to use special tools to free him. Ségaux was tossed from the Civic before it came to a stop.
Ségaux and Noah where both in critical condition when they were taken to a hospital. A sample of Ségaux’s blood revealed he was well over the legal blood/alcohol limit.