Appeal court upholds jail sentence for Puslinch driver

TORONTO – The Ontario court of appeal is upholding a 15-month sentence and three-year driving ban for a Puslinch man convicted in a 2023 trial of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and failing to remain at the scene.

Adnan Refaeh, then 19, was driving through downtown Guelph at around 8pm on May 15, 2021 when he pulled up beside another driver who revved his vehicle.

Refaeh, accompanied by a girlfriend in the passenger seat, answered back, revving the motor of his father’s BMW.

The race was on.

The pair sped through 22 intersections, weaving across lanes and through traffic, until the other driver smashed into a vehicle head-on, seriously injuring a 13-year-old.

Though it was the other driver who crashed, the law considers both drivers to be responsible when street racing results in injury to an innocent person.

Refaeh drove away from the crash, stopping his car briefly at the roadside to look at the scene.

According to a summary of events contained in the appeal court’s June 16 decision, his girlfriend pleaded for them to help the crash victims, but Refaeh told her to “get back in the f***ing car” and drove away.

Encouraged by family members, including one who was a police officer, Refaeh covered his tracks. He altered the car so it wouldn’t be identified, deleted social media evidence of the car, and lied to police.

“He told numerous lies to conceal his involvement in the accident,” the appeal court decision states.

Refaeh was convicted by a jury in December 2023.

Superior Court Justice Cynthia Petersen handed Refaeh a 15 month-sentence in March 2024, including a year for dangerous driving and three months for failing to remain at the collision scene, followed by a three-year driving ban.

Petersen cited Refaeh’s six speeding convictions and two breaches of an order not to drive, among other aggravating factors, in the sentence.

Refaeh appealed, hoping to get his convictions tossed or, failing that, to swap jail for house arrest.

Refaeh argued that a Charter challenge over trial delays was wrongly dismissed, his police statement was given under pressure and shouldn't have been admitted, that the jury was not properly instructed, and that he should have received house arrest instead of jail.

The May 8 appeal was heard by a three-judge panel – appeal court justices Grant Huscroft, Lois Roberts and Renee Pomerance – which unanimously rejected the arguments and upheld the conviction and sentence.

“We see no basis to intervene with the trial judge’s decision on sentence,” their decision states.

"Given the seriously aggravating circumstances of this case, the sentence was extremely lenient."