Rai trial day 5

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The man who crashed a dump truck in to the Skyway bridge failed a breathalyzer 4 hours after the collision, that is what court heard today at the trial of Sukhvinder Singh Rai.

Rai fail a breathalizer having a blood alcohol content of at least 0.10, 20% over the legal limit. He is now facing four charges related to the crash, two of the charges are related to impaired driving.

Constable Andrew Halliday was one of the first officers to the crash scene at the top of the Skyway bridge on July 31st, 2014. Halliday spoke to Sukhvinder Sigh Rai and told Rai to sit in the back of a police cruiser “for his own safety” because the bridge was unstable. Halliday says he searched Rai and then allowed the 37 year old to make cell phone calls from the police car while they waited for further instruction.

Several hours later at approximately 7:20pm Halliday said that he re-entered the vehicle and noticed “a strong odour of alcoholic beverage.” Halliday asked twice “anything to drink today?” Both times Rai said “no.”

Constable Halliday didn’t have a device to perform a breathalyzer in his car, so he drove back to the Burlington detachment with Rai in the back seat. It was there that officer found the testing device that he needed. Rai failed the test at 7:32pm, 3 hours and 57 minutes after the crash. Halliday advised Rai that he was under arrest.

The defence for Sukhvinder Singh Rai argued that much of this evidence should be inadmissible. Defence lawyer David Locke argued that putting Rai in the back of the cruiser was detaining him, that Rai was not told that he can leave at any time and it was not “for his own safety” therefore that Sukhvinder Singh Rai was denied his rights to counsel when detained.

There won’t be any quick fix to these legal arguments as they’re expected to go into tomorrow and possibly Thursday as the trial continues and looks like it could be extended into next week.