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Man gets jail time three years after drunk driving charge Terrence McEachern Northern News Services Published Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The facts, as read by Crown prosecutor Angie Paquin, show that at 2:45 a.m. on May 11, 2008, Mounties in a patrol car stopped near Gitzel Street saw a 2008 blue SUV driving down the middle of Franklin Avenue with its headlights turned off. The officers pulled the vehicle over after it turned onto Norseman Drive. One of the Mounties spoke to the driver, Daniel Phillip Lafferty, and noticed he showed signs of intoxication such as slurred speech, droopy eye lids and the smell of alcohol. Lafferty had trouble exiting the vehicle. He couldn't find the door handle, and even when the officer pointed it out to him, Lafferty was still unable to open the door. Beside Lafferty was an intoxicated female passenger, the SUV's owner. She said Lafferty told her he was sober and able to drive, the Crown prosecutor said. Lafferty was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. At 3:40 a.m. at the Yellowknife detachment, he provided two breathalyzer samples, registering 210 and 200 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of alcohol, more than twice the legal limit of 80 milligrams. Lafferty was charged with impaired driving and driving while still disqualified from an earlier drunk driving conviction, on Aug. 28, 2007. Paquin asked Judge Garth Malakoe to impose a sentence of 40 days for the drunk driving charge and another 20 days in jail for driving while disqualified. Lafferty's lawyer, Peter Fuglsang, told the court his client is a partner with his father in a freight company in the city. "He's a young man with good potential," said Fuglsang, while asking the judge for a shorter jail term in the range of 30-40 days to be served intermittently, so that his client could keep his job. It was never explained in court why the case took so long, three years, to reach the sentencing stage. But court records show that Lafferty had been scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 5, 2008, to speak to the charges. Instead, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and the warrant wasn't executed until March 2010. A trial date was then set for July 28, 2010, but, once again, Lafferty didn't show and another arrest warrant was issued. He was arrested on May 8 this year and appeared in court on June 7. Meanwhile, besides the jail term, Malakoe also banned Lafferty from driving for two years and ordered him to pay a $100 victims of crime surcharge. Lafferty declined to speak to the court when offered the chance to do so.
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