Accused’s blood sample disputed by defence

Trial for man charged in connection to head-on highway collision continues with lawyers arguing over possible evidence

Defence counsel for a Cypress County man accused of impaired driving that caused a collision on the Trans-Canada Highway in 2015, sending multiple people to hospital, is seeking to have the blood taken from his client dismissed from evidence.

As part of a voire dire hearing mid-trial at the Medicine Hat Courthouse, defence lawyer Lyndon Heidinger made multiple submissions of how his client’s charter rights were violated — including that the accused wasn’t informed early enough that he was under arrest, that police didn’t take proper steps to demonstrate why bloodwork was needed instead of a breathalyzer, and that police failed to ensure his client had access to legal counsel before bloodwork was taken that could be used as evidence against him.

The Provincial Crown argued police took reasonable steps considering the circumstances of the collision.

Judge Eric Brooks will hand down his decisions on these possible breaches Dec. 21. If breaches occurred, then the Crown will argue the bloodwork evidence shouldn’t be thrown out in the interest of justice at a Jan. 19 hearing.

Friday’s sole testimony at trial came from 32-year-old Zachary English, the passenger in the accused’s vehicle at the time of the collision.

English testified he and his father had a few beers at his father’s home in Dunmore on Dec. 17, then walked to a nearby pub. There, he said they happened upon the accused, Curtis Beisel, who was at the bar’s VLTs, and appeared to be drinking. At the time, English said he was employed part time as a construction labourer by the accused.

English said he and his father played pool, and the accused joined them. After a while, his father left and walked home, while he and the accused continued to hang out, play pool and drink for a while longer. He couldn’t remember exactly how much the accused had to drink.

English said he decided to walk home, and the accused offered him a ride.

“I figured you couldn’t really mess up driving a quarter kilometre across the highway,” he said oft his logic for getting into a vehicle when he knew the driver had been drinking.

English testified to how the accused crossed the highway’s eastbound lanes, and turned and went the wrong way on the westbound lanes, instead of just crossing to the other side.

English recalled telling the accused something to the effect that the were going the wrong way, seeing headlights, then the collision. He next remembers waking up on a plane flying him to the hospital in Calgary.

Defence counsel put forward that English was highly intoxicated, and much of what he testified to never happened — that memories, for example, of what happened at the bar were later filled in by his father. Defence also pointed to an extremely sparse statement that English made to police soon after, that left out various details he testified to in court.

But English insisted he was not “blackout drunk,” and that his extremely brief statement to police was because he couldn’t remember much of what happened but memories returned after he came off the painkillers he was on.

English testified he was in the hospital for almost a month, and then it took months for him to come off of the painkillers that he felt addicted to.

English, who now works with an arborist in the Okanagan Valley, testified about the injuries caused by the collision: A shattered knee, a “busted” femur that now has a titanium rod in it, and how the tendons of one hand had to be pinned back together.

Almost two years later his injuries remain “excruciatingly painful,” he said. “When it gets cold, I can barely walk.”

“I can only do really light labour,” he said. “I couldn’t go back to the oilpatch, which was my career.”