Driver found guilty in hit-and-run death of Hamilton conductor Boris Brott

Arsenije Lojovic, the driver who hit and killed Hamilton conductor Boris Brott, has been found guilty of several charges, including dangerous driving causing death and fail to remain causing death. 

Ontario court Justice Fred Campling ruled on Monday the "clearly dangerous" driving by Lojovic on April 5 resulted in Brott's death. 

Lojovic's actions that day presented a "shocking scenario of dangerous driving in several parts of the city," Campling said.

Lojovic, 35, was also found guilty of breaching a probation order by failing to keep the peace.

Relatives of Brott who were in the court room appeared to be crying and held each other after the ruling.

Brott, the artistic director of the Orchestre classique de Montréal and renowned conductor and speaker, was 78 when he died, leaving behind his wife Ardyth Webster Brott and three adult children. 

Lojovic was last in court in late June. 

At a previous hearing on June 28, the court heard from multiple witnesses who saw a black Volkswagen being driven erratically and dangerously on April 5.

That April morning, police had already been looking for the black Volkswagen by the time Brott was killed around 10:20 a.m.

Officers previously testified the police service had received calls from residents who spotted a driver swerving into oncoming traffic on the Mountain, and shortly after that on Burlington Street East.

Officer Rory Gemmill heard about the search for the car on the police radio at the start of his 10 a.m. shift that day, so he drove his cruiser to Rebecca Street, facing James Street North, as reports said the car was speeding south along the busy downtown artery.

He followed Lojovic from about 100 meters and said he could see it conducting several "unsafe" lane changes, back and forth between the southbound lanes.

Eventually, Gemmill says he watched in shock as the black VW turned right onto Main Street – against the flow of traffic on the five-lane, one-way street.

Gemmill lost visual of the vehicle shortly after, during which time it went into Hamilton's Durand neighbourhood and hit Brott. Lojovic then continued to drive up the Mountain, where he was eventually arrested.