A 47-year-old Vernon woman broke down in tears after hearing that she was going to prison for 18 months for a drunk driving crash that caused significant injuries to the 81-year-old and 14-year-old victims.

At the Vernon courthouse, July 8, Robyn Lindsay Syvania Hyde shook through much of the court proceeding as BC Provincial Court Judge George Leven said that the 47-year-old had repeatedly chosen to drive while drunk despite the fact that she’d been repeatedly punished for doing so.

“Every year, drunk driving causes a terrible trail of death, injury, heartbreak and destruction,” the Judge told a Vernon courtroom. “Impaired driving arguably has a more profound impact on Canadian society than any other crime.”

Judge Leven pointed out that Hyde had multiple convictions for drunk driving and had received a 90-day driving ban while on bail for the crash she caused, which was sending her to prison.

The crash dates back to December 2022, when Hyde failed to slow down and hit the rear of a vehicle on Highway 97 near Swan Lake. The crash had a ricochet effect, forcing the vehicle that Hyde had hit into the car in front of it.

She had an “extremely high” blood alcohol level of 300 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood and was three to four times over the legal limit.

One of the victims was 81 years old at the time, and the crash left him with persistent headaches, dizziness, shoulder pain, mood swings and chronic fatigue.

The Crown had said the crash had robbed the now 85-year-old of his time, clarity, strength and peace by someone who made a choice to drive drunk.

The other victim was 14 years old, and the crash left her suffering headaches that lasted for two years.

“She fell behind in school, and her grades suffered. She lost some mobility in her neck and is still not able to turn her head fully to the right,” the Judge said.

It appears Hyde remained unscathed by the crash.

She was charged with two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm and pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty on both counts after a two-day trial.

The court heard how the 47-year-old had been a chronic alcoholic for years, and started drinking daily after her mother died when she was 13 years old.

She’d managed to graduate from university and had studied counselling and criminology.

She’d run her own landscaping business and had drunk heavily her entire life. At one point, she drank a 1.75-litre bottle of hard liquor every day.

She lost the business after the crash.

The court heard how Hyde had been subjected to domestic abuse, and her former partner was jailed because of it.

Judge Levan said he accepted Hyde was remorseful for the crash, but highlighted that she’d been caught drunk driving while on bail for drunk driving.

“I also accept that she had a difficult upbringing and suffered serious abuse at the hands of a former intimate partner. I cannot, however, see how those unfortunate events in her life caused or contributed to the commission of these offences,” the judge said.

Hyde had said she had gotten sober several months earlier, but the judge wasn’t convinced.

“I do not accept this as evidence of rehabilitation… she has not submitted any material to the court that would show she has taken any rehabilitative steps towards addressing her serious and longstanding alcohol problem,” the Judge said.

The judge was also skeptical of her claim that she would not try to get her licence back in the future.

“If her position is that she learned a lesson and changed her behaviour by not driving anymore because of these offences, I do not accept that,” the Judge said.

Her defence lawyer had argued for house arrest, but Judge Leven rejected it, saying there were few mitigating factors in the case and no guilty plea.

Ultimately, the judge sentenced Hyde to 18 months in jail, and she was escorted from the courtroom by sheriffs in floods of tears. She was also fined $2,000 and banned from driving for three years.

Outside the courtroom, the 85-year-old victim told iNFOnews.ca he hoped she gets some help.

When asked how he was doing, he replied “Not good.”