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Driver had a 'need for speed'

Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, April 28, 2010

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A 19-year-old who rolled his car in the Kam Lake area last year, causing injury to two passengers, is prohibited from driving for two years and was given a $2,000 fine.

The young man, who pleaded guilty to drunk driving causing bodily harm and uttering threats - the latter charge relating to a separate incident - received an additional 18 months probation for the two offences, which Justice Christine Gagnon said she considered "serious."

"I accept this is an eye-opener for you," Gagnon said of how the man might not have been so lucky in other jurisdictions where he likely would have been sentenced to jail time.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 2009, police received a call about a vehicle that had rolled over in the Kam Lake area. Police found a dark green Crown Victoria with "plenty of blood" inside, but no one around, said Crown prosecutor Glen Boyd.

The police then went to the hospital after hospital staff informed them that several intoxicated individuals had come in and were causing a disturbance.

A suspect admitted he was driving the vehicle when it rolled over several times. A blood sample showed the man to be just over the legal limit.

Both passengers sustained injuries, one breaking a vertebrae in his back.

"Fast cars, drugs and alcohol are a deadly combination," Boyd said, adding the pre-sentence report showed the young man had a "need for speed" that remained a concern because he only acknowledged that he doesn't go "stupid fast" anymore.

"He shouldn't be going fast at all," Boyd said.

Defence lawyer Jay Bran said the report was "positive" and his client's guilty pleas prove "he's taken responsibility for his actions."

The uttering threats charge stemmed from an incident on Nov. 19, when the man helped a friend steal a snowmobile from his father's garage while the father was travelling in the United States. A neighbour, who was asked to watch the home because his son was not supposed to be there, was cornered by the man and two other friends. During the incident the convicted man said, "I'll kill you if you call the police," court heard.

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