... The judge said there were two reasons the crash could have happened: Dhaliwal was distracted or the brakes on the bus she drove were faulty.
Dhaliwal did not testify in her own defence, but her lawyers argued the brakes on the bus she was driving failed, and she had to use a hand brake to eventually stop the bus.
A mechanic for the Crown testified that the brakes on the bus were working at the time of the collision, but the defence called that witness unreliable.
The Crown also told the judge it was their theory that the brakes were working, but Dhaliwal didn’t apply them due to a “pattern of inattention” on the day of the deadly crash.
In his final decision, the judge called the series of events “bewildering.”
“Taking all the evidence together, the mystery of what caused this accident has not been solved. Brake failure remains a viable possibility,” Harris wrote.
“Contrary to this, proof in a criminal case requires a high degree of certainty as expressed in the beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Reasonable doubt must be excluded. That standard, in my view, has not been achieved. The Crown has failed to convincingly remove brake malfunction as the cause of the collision.” ...