While driving, our client rear-ended another vehicle. The other occupants told him that the police were on their way. Our client stayed in order to speak to police, believing that he was required to stay and speak with them. When the officers arrived, they spoke to our client, at which point he admitted he was the driver and cooperated with the police. During the course of this investigation, the police developed a suspicion that he may have been drinking alcohol, but they did not advise him that the nature of their investigation had changed to a criminal matter until they demanded that he provide a breath sample. Our client eventually provided breath samples that showed he had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.
Our client was charged with operating a motor vehicle while impaired and with over eighty milligrams of alcohol on one-hundred millilitres of his blood. Defence counsel brought an application under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to exclude the statements where our client identified himself as the driver. At trial, the judge excluded those statements, leading to the exclusion of the breath samples.
RESULT: Our client was found not guilty of all charges.