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Decision Friday on double fatal accident

It was September 2013 when Dyer learned the driver of the vehicle involved in the crash was acquitted of dangerous driving causing death.

It was in October, five years ago when Debbie Dyer lost her daughter Beckie in a traffic accident not far from her Pitt Meadows home.

It was September 2013 when Dyer learned the driver of the vehicle involved in the crash was acquitted of dangerous driving causing death.

This Friday, Debbie Dyer learns if the Supreme Court of Canada will order a new trial or uphold the original acquittal of Andelina Kristina Hecimovic, who was charged after an Oct. 19, 2010 collision on Lougheed Highway at Harris Road, that claimed the lives of Rebecca ‘Beckie’ Dyer, 19, and her boyfriend, Johnny De Oliveira, 21.

Debbie Dyer has followed the case through the courts, pressing for a new trial and a different decision.

During the accident, a Toyota driven by Hecimovic skidded sideways over a concrete median, flipped and landed on top of the couple’s Suzuki Swift. Hecimovic was driving in the right-turn-only lane when she crossed the intersection of Harris Road and Lougheed Highway on a red light. An expert estimated she hit the concrete median at a speed of between 100 or 110 km/h.

In the initial trial in September 2013, Justice Miriam Gropper ruled that Hecimovic was not trying to beat the red light. Hecimovic told the court she was thinking about her shift and suddenly smelled something odd as she approached the intersection. When she looked at her scrubs she noticed vomit on her shirt and burst into tears. She was trying to wipe the tears off her face and focus on the road when she realized she had run a red light.

Gropper found that Hecimovic’s behaviour was not a “marked departure from the norm” because many people speed along that stretch of Lougheed Highway.

The B.C. Appeal Court ordered a new trial last year after the Crown appealed.

Debbie Dyer said there has to be a conviction, otherwise the same excuse can be used in similar cases.

Just because many motorists drive that way doesn’t make it right, said Dyer.

“It’s the law. In this instance, it makes it sound like it’s OK to do that.

“Justice has to prevail at some point.”

• Dyer is marking the occasion of the fifth anniversary of her daughter’s death with a fundraiser, Nov. 25, 6 p.m., at Samz Pub, on the corner of Lougheed Highway and Harris Road, near the location of the accident.

It’s a fundraiser for Cythera Transition House at Christmas.

Dyer said her daughter would have supported women fleeing abusive relationships.