After nearly two years of legal wrangling, Michael Watkin, the man charged in relation to a single vehicle car accident that left an 18-year-old Jasper girl with severe brain damage, has pleaded guilty to causing bodily harm through criminal negligence.

Watkin, 26, a resident of Jasper, will serve no jail time for his guilty plea. Two counts of impaired driving were dropped against him in return for his admission of guilt. In a deal worked out between his lawyer and the Alberta Crown Prosecutor’s office, he has been given a conditional 15-month sentence.

Watkin must report to a court officer whenever the officer demands and must also keep himself close to his home phone so that that officer may reach him at all times.

“It essentially amounts to 15 months of house arrest,” said Crown Prosecutor John Higgerty, who helped broker the deal. He was transferred onto the file the day the bargain was reached, after it was passed off to him from Hinton Crown Prosecutor David Clifton.

The sentence also bans Watkin from consuming any alcohol and attending bars or nightclubs.

Watkin was also banned from driving for 15 months.

The maximum sentence he could have faced for the crime was 10 years in jail.

Higgerty said he was partially swayed to make the bargain due to the fact that it would have been difficult to prove in a trial that Watkin was the driver in the accident. Watkin and Liza-Jane McAughren were found on the side of the road several hours after the accident occurred.

“The only witness to the accident here has severe head injuries,” said Higgerty.

The deal was worked out in Sherwood Park on April 15 following a pre-trial conference between the lawyers and the judge in the case, Judge John Maher. The conference was meant to work out which witnesses would be appearing at an upcoming pre-trial into the case in Jasper on April 19, which would have determined whether a full trial was necessary.

Several witnesses who were to testify against Watkin were expected to make an appearance at the pre-trial after traveling across Canada.

Higgerty said he had asked Judge Maher to sentence Watkin to 15 months in jail, a standard punishment for this type of offence.

However, he said that Judge Maher was swayed to be lenient due to the fact that Watkin has admitted guilt. Also, the victim’s mother, Shelly McAughren, submitted a letter stating that she had forgiven Watkin for his actions in the suffering of her daughter.

As well, Watkin’s clean record and the fact that he has a young daughter swayed the judge’s thinking, said Higgerty.

“Anytime you lock someone up, that’s a cost to taxpayers of $90,000 a year, and that has to be balanced with notions of justice and what’s right,” said Higgerty. “I believe it was Socrates who said that a court of justice should be a place where reason and not emotion holds sway.”

Watkin’s lawyer, Naeem Rauf, said that he had no comment on the case.

According to an RCMP news release, during the early morning hours of June 1, 2008 a Mazda 3 car crashed into a retaining wall of the Marmot Basin Road, throwing the two occupants from the vehicle. They were found on the side of the road around 6:30 a.m. by a group of passing tourists.

Liza-Jane McAughren was severely injured in the accident and was in a coma for nearly three weeks afterwards.

Although Liza-Jane McAughren is no longer in a coma, she has been diagnosed with a severe trauma frontal lobe brain injury, her mother said.

She has said that she does not believe her daughter will ever be the same as she was before the accident.