Shock, Grief, Regret

An accident takes place. It is a contest between the solidly awesome weight and hard metal surface of a vehicle slamming against soft human bodies. It is not much of a contest. There are people standing about at a bus stop, waiting for transportation to take them from their night out on the town back home where a baby-sitter is looking after their three young girls.

Perhaps the girls have been entrusted to look after themselves; one of the siblings is, after all, old enough to baby-sit younger children. The girls - for the siblings are all girls - are perhaps accustomed to their parents' occasional night out, in celebration of the happy and fulfilling years they've been together.

The driver of the errant vehicle is a young man. He is obviously a young man from a 'good home'. In that the background that expressed his upbringing is an economically and socially privileged one, given that this young man is driving a very expensive, a very powerful, late-model car.

And he has been engaged in putting it through its muscular paces. Driving not only erratically, but much, much too fast; not at all in compliance with the speed limit. He has been noted by witnesses to have circled that portion of the downtown area on a number of occasions.

The night is young, it is a crisp, late summer, almost-fall evening, and he is inebriated with the nectar of reckless youth, and the fascination of handling an amazing toy that responds wonderfully well to his manipulating of its mechanical output.

This is a young man fascinated with his mechanical device, his metal steed, urging it to speeds and manoeuvres that a young man in possession of something special feels entitled to experiment with and to enjoy, and he is concentrating on utilizing his opportunities to their full potential.

His high spirits have been fuelled additionally by potable spirits. As a young man living in a civil society he is aware that no one should be driving in such a manner on downtown streets of a busy urban area, but he feels fully in control, quite the master of his vehicle, and nothing really stands between him and his amazingly good fun-time.

When, after he has stunningly lost control of his vehicle, and another young man lies dead, and that man's wife so close to death she will not last the night, he is heard by a witness to iterate and reiterate something to the extent that he cannot believe what has occurred.

The 20-year-old proud car owner is taken away to prison, just as the bodies are recovered, one to the morgue, the other to hospital where she too will perish from her mortally-inflicted wounds. The young man is charged with four counts of criminal actions; two each of dangerous driving causing death and of criminal negligence causing death.

For these are life-destroying consequences resulting from his own night out on the town - of which he stands guilty. Guilty of committing manslaughter through the careless use of a potentially destructive mechanical device.

Simon Banke is not known to have apologized to the grieving relatives of Leo Paul Regnier and Sherrianne Regnier. In court, traumatized representatives of each side sat on opposite sides of the chamber. Shocked and bereaved family members of the two young married people who leave behind three young orphans.

Through their shock perhaps searching for some recognizable sign of personal torment on the face of the accused, but they see nothing but a stoic visage, nor do they hear anything even resembling a mumbled apology of a stricken consciousness.