11 years for gas-dash death

Photo: The Canadian Press

Kobra Mohammadi, centre, mother of Maryam Rashidi, arrives at court with family members.

A man who ran over and killed a gas-station worker trying to stop him from stealing fuel has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Joshua Cody Mitchell, 22, was convicted by a jury earlier this year of manslaughter, hit and run and theft.

"There was no intent to kill here," Justice Alan Macleod said in his sentencing decision Wednesday. "There was no intent to seriously injure, but the risks were patently obvious."

Macleod also handed Mitchell a lifetime driving ban.

Maryam Rashidi, who was 35, died two years ago when Mitchell ran over her as he took off without paying for $113 of fuel.

She and her husband had come to Canada from Iran in 2014 because she wanted a better life for their son. She had been working at the Centex gas station for just two weeks after being laid off from her engineering job during Calgary's economic downturn.

Mitchell's sentence consists of 10 years for manslaughter and an additional year for hit and run. The judge gave him about 3 1/2 years of credit for time served.

"I'd like to apologize to the family and friends of Ms. Rashidi for the ... pain and suffering I have caused their family," Mitchell said in a statement to the court before he was sentenced.

"If I could take back what I've done, I would, and if I had the chance to replace Ms. Rashidi I would."

Earlier Wednesday, Rashidi's brother said he's haunted by thoughts of his sister's final moments when she was lying on the ground "like a rag doll."

"I did not live any single day without thinking and experiencing flashbacks of what scenarios happened to my sister in that crime incident," Mohamad Rashidi wrote in a victim impact statement read in court as his mother wept quietly.