Vaughan man sentenced for abandoning his teenage girlfriend in Brampton traffic after she fell out of his car

The man convicted of driving away from his teenage girlfriend after she fell out of his car was sentenced in a Brampton courtroom to eight months in jail and a 18 months of probation.

The man, Adhinath Sankar, and his girlfriend Dianna Manan, 16, attended a baby shower the evening of January 4, 2020, according the the agreed facts presented in court.

The couple left the party shortly after midnight January 5. As they were walking to Sankar’s vehicle Manan lay down on the sidewalk, the court saw via surveillance video. Sankar then picked her up and carried her to his car, a 2008 Infiniti, placing her in the front passenger seat.

While Sankar drove down Queen Street, an 80 km/h zone in Brampton, Manan fell out of the car, suffering a major injury to her head alongside wounds to her abdomen, arms and legs from contact with the road.

Sankar continued driving from the scene, leaving Manan amid six lanes of traffic as temperatures hovered around 0 C.

Sankar was seen on surveillance and dashcam video driving around the area of the accident later that morning. He returned to the accident scene and parked nearby for some time, before returning to the home that hosted the shower to inspect his vehicle.

Other drivers found Manan bleeding from her head on the road before Sankar’s return and called an ambulance. Manan was breathing and had a pulse when paramedics arrived, but succumbed to her injuries in hospital sometime later.

Manan had a blood-alcohol-content of 126 mg/100 ml at the time of her death. Presiding justice Paul Mohanan says Sankar should have been well aware of Manan’s impairment given that he had just picked her up off the sidewalk.

The incident was initially treated as a hit-and-run, but later treated as a fail-to-remain investigation. Sankar was arrested months later in June 2020. He would later plead guilty to the charges.

“It’s bad enough not to help a stranger, but the failure to help Ms. Manan is even worse. Further, she was a passenger in his vehicle and she was his girlfriend,” Monahan said.

“We now know she would not have survived the fall from the vehicle no matter what. He left her for others to help when he had an obligation to help her,” he continued.

Despite Crown requests for 15-18 months behind bars, Monahan sentenced Sankar to eight month in jail, 18 months probation and a two year driving ban. After his sentence Sankar will need to complete 75 hours of community service.