Impaired driver cannot use community officer defence

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This article was published 28/02/2025 (259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An impaired driver who argued in Steinbach court that he should not be convicted because he was pulled over by community safety officers lost that argument.

Judge David Ireland ruled Feb. 21 that Andrew Nentri was guilty and allowed defence lawyer Matt Gould’s request that Nentri be sentenced in Winnipeg at a later date for the sake of convenience.

Nentri’s attempted defence was that a breath demand was not given quickly enough after being pulled over because community safety officers were acting as peace officers and do not have breath sample equipment with them.

Community safety officers (CSOs) said at an earlier trial that they pulled Nentri over in Steinbach on Sept. 3, 2023 at 1:45 a.m. for running a stop sign. They called Steinbach RCMP already on route to assist at 1:46 a.m. when they suspected Nentri had been drinking. The RCMP officer arrived in one minute.

The RCMP officer with 12 years experience knew he legally could not use the CSOs’ observations so initiated his own. CSOs enforce traffic laws and provincial statutes, not the criminal code.

Nentri said he had a couple beers at a friend’s. He blew a fail on the roadside test and later blew .12 at the station, well above the .08 legal limit.

The defence argued the officer should have told him he was being investigated for a crime. Judge Ireland said an officer asking if he’d been drinking while he was at the wheel of a vehicle gave enough reasonable notice that he was.

Defence argued a CSO is indistinguishable from an officer of the state like one from the RCMP and needs to act the same. The judge again disagreed and added the CSOs conducting an investigation or pulling someone over for drunk driving would have been fine anyway, as long as they called in a peace officer.

“I disagree with Mr. Nentri or anyone found in a similar position that they should be effectively immune from prosecution for impaired driving because the initial stop was made by a community safety officer,” said Ireland.

The judge did allow the defence to choose an impaired conviction instead of the drive over .12, which now carries a minimum $1,500 fine. Impaired driving without the blood-alcohol level over .12 carries a minimum fine of $1,000 and a one-year driving prohibition.