A provincial judge encouraged a man to examine his relationship with alcohol after he pleaded guilty to two charges related to his drinking.
Vernon Eugene Arthurs, 40, pleaded guilty to a single count of driving with blood alcohol over the legal limit, as well as another count of breaching his bail conditions by drinking.
On Sept. 27, 2008 Arthurs drove his Ford Mustang into a tree along McKenney Avenue. Initial reports from witness was that several people got out of the vehicle and wandered away.
Police found the Mustang, which was badly damaged, and then a short distance away found Arthurs. When he was taken back to the RCMP detachment, Arthurs breathalyzer test revealed he was well over the legal limit at 0.140.
Arthurs was released on bail following that incident, but on Oct. 8, 2009 police received a report he was drinking again. At the time he was under bail conditions not to consume alcohol.
Judge Marilyn White agreed to a proposal from both the crown and the defence for Arthurs to pay fines on the charges. He was given a $2,000 fine for driving with a blood alcohol over the legal limit and $250 for breaching his bail conditions.
After sentencing him, White encouraged Arthurs to consider some treatment or assessment for his alcohol use. She said if wrapping his car around a tree wasn’t a wake up call, getting arrested again for breaching his bail conditions should have been.
She noted that some judges would revoke a person’s bail when they breach conditions or sentence them to jail time and he was essentially balancing his freedom against drinking.
“You put that in jeopardy to have a drink.”
Arthurs was granted six months to pay the fine and will be prohibited from driving for a year.
A one-night outing to a rock concert almost cost one man his freedom last week.
Spencer Smolcic, pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to a single count of breaching his conditional sentence and was given an extension of his house arrest, but not before Judge Marilyn White suggested he could just as easily go to jail.
Earlier this year, Smolcic pleaded guilty to trafficking in cocaine and was placed on the house arrest term. His involvement in the trafficking was minimal, passing drugs and cash in a car between the driver and an undercover police officer.
On the night of Aug. 26 the probation office called Smolcic’s home to check if he was home. His mother told the probation office he had gone to a concert and that she understood he had received permission to be out.
Smolcic had not received permission and was arrested for breaching his house arrest.
Crown prosecutor Kevin Short and defence lawyer William Tatarchuk presented White with a proposal to keep Smolcic out of prison.
When an offender breaches a house arrest term, the judge has the option of converting anything left on the sentence to a prison term. Short and Tatarchuk argued instead that Smolcic have his house arrest extended by two months, the time between his breach and Monday’s court date.
White said she found Smolcic’s decision exasperating.
“To think that he is serving a federal sentence and he thinks he can go to a rock concert,” she said, before asking for more information from both sides to convince her a jail sentence wasn’t warranted.
“I don’t understand why you should not be going to jail,” she said bluntly to Smolcic.
The young man expressed his deep apologies for having gone to the concert. He said it was a tremendous lack of judgment, but he highlighted his performance in school, his new job and other signs he was on a good course.
“I am doing better now — at this point in my life — than I have at any point in the last five years,” he said, adding jail would throw him off that course.
White said Smolcic’s actions denigrated the idea of house arrest in the community and made it harder for judges to impose it in future. While she relented to the proposal and did not send him to prison, she made it clear this would be his last chance.
