Impaired driver gets two-year sentence for hitting Regina boy

The man who pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing bodily harm for hitting and seriously injuring Benjamin Dufour last year has been sentenced to two years less a day in jail.

Charles Howard Raycraft was charged after a crash in June 2022 in the 200 block of Dalgliesh Drive, where then-seven-year-old Dufour was waiting with his older brother for the school bus. Dufour sustained serious injuries.

On Tuesday, Provincial Court Judge Noah Evanchuk announced the sentence, which was a joint submission by the Crown and defence counsel. The sentence also included 12 months of probation upon Raycraft’s release from jail, a 10-year ban on owning firearms and a three-year driving probation upon release.

A charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm was stayed.

When Evanchuk was reading the sentence, he said he was “personally moved” by the victim impact statements read by the Dufour family during a hearing Monday.

Members of the Dufour family who were present Tuesday wiped away tears as Evanchuk read the sentence. They declined to speak to reporters after the hearing.

The Dufour family set up a GoFundMe page with a $75,000 goal. Donations sat at about $88,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

Evanchuk read from documents from Raycraft’s defence that said he had allegedly attempted suicide after getting out of a bad relationship around the time of the crash.

Court heard he was under the influence of an unprescribed anti-depressant at the time of the crash.

The judge also noted Raycraft had expressed “some level of remorse” for the victim and his family.

Raycraft has one previous conviction of impaired driving in 2019.

Benjamin’s mother, Cassi Dufour, wrote in her victim impact statement that she felt she had failed as a mother after the crash, and did not know if her son was going to live.

“As a mother, it was my job to keep him safe, but in this moment, I felt I failed,” she wrote. “I could not protect my children from what was about to happen. Nobody could. Because of someone else’s decision, my children were not safe and I had no control.”

After the crash, the boy was airlifted to the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon with several broken bones, as well as soft tissue and brain damage.

Cassi added in her victim impact statement that Benjamin is recovering but the trauma will always stay with the family.

“These memories do not go away,” she wrote. “The pictures in our minds of the things we saw and experienced are forever with us. It is impossible to put onto paper how this has truly impacted us. And there aren’t words to describe it.

“Just know the pain that was caused was real.”