VANCOUVER — A former Ladysmith resident convicted of killing a four-year-old girl in an impaired-driving crash more than six years ago is expected to be released from prison on Tuesday.
Carol Ann Berner, who was sentenced to a 2 1/2-year jail term for killing Alexa Middelaer, will be out on statutory release after serving two-thirds of her sentence.
She was released on a number of conditions, including abstaining from alcohol and getting treatment for substance abuse and “emotions management,” conditions that will continue until Sept. 3, 2015, when her sentence expires.
Berner is also forbidden to have any contact with Alexa’s family or the girl’s aunt, Daphne Johanson, who was injured in the 2008 crash, to own or drive a vehicle, consume alcohol or visit pubs, bars or liquor stores, he said.
It’s not known where Berner will live after her release.
Berner was found guilty in 2010 of impaired driving causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm, dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing harm after her Oldsmobile veered off a rural Delta road on May 17, 2008, and plowed into Alexa and Johanson, who were feeding a horse on the side of the road.
She appealed her sentence in the B.C. Court of Appeal, which rejected her case in March 2013.
That was when Berner, who had been on bail for all but two weeks since the charges were laid, started serving her jail term.
At that time, Alexa’s father, Michael Middelaer, noted the process had taken five years, longer than his daughter had lived.
