Drunk driver sentenced on 2018 standards for crime 12 years ago

Evading justice for more than a decade backfired for a drunk motorist who received a greater punishment Tuesday than he would have 12 years ago.

Provincial court Judge Peter Barley agreed with Crown prosecutor Andrew Barg that Harold Nelson Wright should be punished by today’s standards.

In May, Barg noted courts have increased the punishments for impaired driving causing bodily harm since Wright committed his crime in 2006.

Defence lawyer Rebecca Snukal argued her client should be punished based on case law from that period.

But Barley, quoting from an Alberta Court of Appeal decision on the same issue involving cyberbullying and online sexual exploitation of children, said “we know better now than we did then.”

“The same can be said about how to deal with the results of impaired driving,” the judge said in his written ruling.

“The fact that courts have increased the sentences imposed over the years is simply a reflection of an increased awareness of the seriousness of the act, and the need to denounce and deter it.”

Barley sentenced Wright to 13 months for causing injury to Jorge Mate in a Dec. 16, 2006, collision. Barg had sought 15 months. Wright ran a red light at 16th Avenue and 29th Street N.W., broadsiding Mate’s car with his Ford SUV.

His blood/alcohol level at the time of the crash was 210 mg of alcohol per 100 mL of blood, more than 2 1/2 times the legal driving limit.

Mate suffered fractured ribs, a partially collapsed lung and a lacerated liver, and could not work for more than a month.

Snukal had noted cases around 2006 involved sentences as low as 90 days where multiple people were injured.

But Barg said punishments for impaired driving offences have gone up since then because the lower sentences have not provided enough of a deterrent to people getting behind the wheel.

Barley also sentenced Wright to an additional 30 days behind bars for failing to appear in court when he initially went on the lam a decade ago.

With credit for time already spent in custody, Wright has 193 days left to serve.