Skyway bridge trial day 7

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A major development at the trial of the man who crashed a dump truck into the Skyway bridge.

A breathalyzer test done 5 hours after Sukhvinder Singh Rai crashed a dump truck into the Skyway bridge the result a .226 almost three times the legal limit. But today’s ruling by Justice Fred Campling removes this evidence from the trial. He spoke directly to Rai when he said: “here we have the unusual and, in my view, critical factor that the demands made of you were a complete violation of the criminal code, and therefore completely illegal.”

Section 254 (2) of the criminal code says that police can demand a breath sample from a person if they have reasonable grounds and it is within 3 hours of that person operating a motor vehicle. The crash happened at 3:35 pm on July 31st, 2014. Just after 4 pm Rai was seated in an OPP cruiser for his own safety, police planned on questioning him, but did not until much later. It was just after 7 pm when officer Andrew Halliday noticed a smell of alcohol on Rai’s breath. He demanded a breath sample at 7:22 pm almost 4 hours after the crash.

Police had said that they were dealing with a very unusual situation after the crash with fears that the bridge may collapse and today Justice Campling said that given the circumstances “police conduct did not deliberately violate the law, bit it severely violated the law.”

But Campling ruled that taking the breath sample 4 hours after the crash is contrary to section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, where it says: “everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.” And under section 24, saying that evidence obtained by denying a persons rights, “shall be excluded.”