A Saanich woman who was driving the car that killed taxi driver Ramesh Sharma and seriously injured five other cabbies at Victoria International Airport last year has been fined $1,500 and prohibited from driving for three years.
Shirley Zerbin, 82, pleaded guilty two weeks ago to a charge under the Motor Vehicle Act of driving without due care and attention. On Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Kimberly Henders Miller told the court that drugs and alcohol did not play a role in the crash — Zerbin simply mistook the gas pedal for the brake.
Although Henders Miller and defence lawyer Dan Murphy made a joint submission asking for a one-year driving prohibition, Victoria provincial court Judge Evan Blake imposed the three-year prohibition to “express the court’s revulsion.�
He ordered Zerbin, a dark-haired, frail-looking woman who uses a walker, to pay the fine within two years.
The court heard that on July 29, 2011, Zerbin was a properly licensed driver who had received only one speeding ticket in her 65-year driving history.
That morning, Zerbin, who had served in the military and worked as a secretary at the Yarrow Shipyards, drove to the airport to pick up a friend in her white 1990 Pontiac
