Richer man can’t hitch ride away from impaired conviction

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This article was published 02/08/2023 (719 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is likely plenty of regret for Tyson Sansregret, 26, after his guilty plea to impaired driving in Steinbach court July 20.

The Richer man was not there when police showed up shortly before midnight Dec. 23, the Friday night before Christmas. Booze was found left behind.

The white Chevy Equinox owned by a relative drove off Highway 52 as it passed Road 29E west of Mitchell. Police found it in the field north of the highway.

Witnesses who stopped to help described Sansregret begging them not to call police and to be driven to Richer. They said he was later picked up by a dark pick-up truck and headed east before Steinbach RCMP got there. Police were told to look for a guy with a bleeding nose, busted lip and beard, and his passenger.

The black pick-up truck was pulled over soon after by another police constable on patrol. The man matching the injuries and physical description was found in the truck, and identified as Sansregret.

He gave two breath samples of .17, more than double the legal limit.

The defence said Sansregret was driving home from a work party that night, and this was just a bad decision.

The Richer man’s past growing up in Ste Anne was also brought up ahead of sentencing.

The defence attorney described a life gone sideways after the death of Sansregret’s father while he was in high school, leading to his dropping out and first impaired conviction. He graduated to meth use in his early 20s before seemingly stopping the downward spiral. Sansregret said he has been sober since the Dec. 23 incident.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Sansregret told the court.

The judge split the difference of the Crown’s request for a $3,000 fine and the defence’s request for a $2,200 fine. Both were OK with the minimum one-year driving prohibition, with the knowledge MPI would tack on more penalties.

In the end, Sansregret received a $2,700 fine on top of the one-year driving prohibition. But with court costs added, he will be paying $3,512 total.

Sansregret’s prior impaired driving conviction was in Steinbach in 2015. He received an $1,100 fine that time.

The Crown attorney said he was confident that they could have proven Sansregret was the driver, but acknowledged that avoiding the need to call all the witnesses to prove he was the man who crashed the SUV while impaired could be considered a mitigating factor in sentencing.

That, the relatively early guilty plea, and the length of time since the prior conviction were why the prosecution was not asking for jail time.