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Gail Roberta St. Pierre Appellant. Her Majesty The Queen Respondent. Indexed as: R. File No. Present: Lamer C. The accused was charged with having the care or control of a motor vehicle while her blood alcohol level was over. She was stopped because a police officer saw her driving erratically. After speaking to her, the officer concluded that she had been consuming alcohol. The accused failed a roadside screening test and was taken to the police station for breathalyzer tests.
She had to wait about an hour for her testing session. She went to the washroom three times during that period. The accused then provided two breath samples, each of which produced a reading of mg of alcohol in ml of blood. Shortly after the tests, the accused showed the officer two empty 50 ml vodka bottles and told him she was an alcoholic and had consumed the contents of the bottles while in the washroom, to calm herself.
The officer testified that the bottles contained no residue, and did not smell of vodka. The Crown relied on the test results to prove that the accused's blood alcohol level at the time of the alleged offence was over. The trial judge found that the presumption did not apply, since there was evidence that the blood alcohol concentration at the time of driving was different from that revealed by the test, and acquitted the accused.
