The victim, 16-year-old Noah-Leewis Mercier, was the stepson of Quebec MNA Marilyne Picard.
The mother of a young man who was killed when the vehicle he was riding in crashed in Pointe Claire asked a Quebec Court judge to be lenient when he sentences the impaired man behind the wheel when the tragedy happened.
In August, Julien Ségaux, 21, of St-Lazare, pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing the death of 16-year-old Noah-Leewis Mercier, his best friend. Mercier was just days away from his 17th birthday when he was killed Dec. 18, 2021. The crash occurred close to the overpass where des Sources Blvd. meets Highway 20.
The fatal crash made headlines because Mercier was the stepson of Quebec MNA Marilyne Picard. The politician is expected to deliver a statement to Judge Jean-Jacques Gagné on Thursday, but the first person to address the court was Mercier’s mother, Marie-Christine Parent.
“Help Julien and give him the help he needs,” Parent told Gagné while adding she doesn’t feel Ségaux caused her son’s death. She repeated a couple of times that she felt both young men made “bad choices” when they got into the vehicle that night.
“Noah is dead and we can’t bring him back,” she said. “I don’t see how prison (for Ségaux) will help him.”
Parent went on to say that she lost two sons in a matter of months when her elder son, Eliot Mercier, 19, died when he was run over by a truck in the Sud-Ouest borough on Nov. 1, 2022.
She said Eliot and Noah were both close to Ségaux.
“On my behalf and on behalf of my son, I ask you for leniency,” Parent said. “(Noah) was not able to watch people suffer. He would come to their aid.
“I don’t hold (Ségaux) responsible. I think he’s had enough. It’s how Noah would want it.”
Ségaux also testified on Thursday and described Noah as “very cool. He probably knew me the best.”
“I think that if my friends heard my story they won’t repeat the same error,” he said.