The man accused of killing five people in a traffic accident has taken the stand in his own defense.
"I think the most important thing about this is people wanted to paint him as a monster, they wanted to paint him as a drunk driver who wiped out a family and I think today all of that was put to the test,' says Balfour Der, the lawyer for Daniel Tschetter.
On December 7, 2007, Tschetter was driving a cement truck that smashed into the back of a car stopped at a light on Macleod Trail.
The accident killed five people including three children.
Tschetter's lawyer says his client was driving erratically but denies he was drunk.
On Monday, Tschetter testified that he was running behind schedule and his cement truck was having problems.
He said he was distracted and didn't notice any of the warning lights, traffic lights or reduced speed signs on the road before smashing into the car.
The family of one of the victims says they can't believe Tschetter would miss all the warning signs on the road. "I was insulted by that, for him to think that we were that stupid that we wouldn't pick up on it," says Tim Gautreau, the uncle of one of the victims.
Tschetter also testified that after the accident he wanted a drink of water so he reached into his cab and grabbed a bottle. He testified that he accidentally drank from the vodka bottle instead of his water bottle.
Tschetter says the reason he threw the vodka bottle into the cement mixer is because he became paranoid and was worried what police would think if they saw him with the bottle.
When police dug the bottle out of the back of the truck,they found the cap intact and most of the alcohol was missing from the bottle. Tschetter says much of the alcohol was gone because the bottle was passed around amongst friends in the summer.
The court also learned that over the past few years, Tschetter has received 10 tickets for speeding, driving through stop signs and ignoring crosswalks.
Der painted Tschetter as a former Hutterite who reads the Bible everyday and takes pride in his work. "He's a hard working regular type guy who was just having a bad day. He missed seeing a whole bunch of lights he should have seen and there were disasterous consequences but he is an ordinary guy and he wasn't trying to hurt anybody," says Der.
The trial wraps up on Tuesday.
