‘Extremely dangerous’

Mathew David Joseph Carter sentenced to six months in jail for driving vehicle onto runway

A judge told a man who drove onto the runway at Charlottetown Airport his actions could have proved catastrophic.

Chief Provincial Court Judge Nancy Orr sentenced Mathew David Joseph Carter, 35, to six months in jail for driving while impaired by drugs. She gave him credit of 142 days for time served.

Carter is prohibited from driving for two years following his release.

Orr also sentenced Carter to three months, to be served concurrently, for damage to property.

In the agreed statement of facts, Carter admits to breaking the chain fencing by driving his vehicle through a fence at the airport on July 16.

He admitted to being impaired by drugs but denies being suicidal on that day.

Orr described the incident as an “extremely dangerous matter’’, noting a plane landed just 13 minutes after police received a call of a vehicle being driven onto the runway.

She credited the “vigilance’’ of airport personnel with possibly averting a catastrophe.

Carter was on statutory release from a federal institution where he had been imprisoned for robbing a Needs Convenience store at knifepoint in Charlottetown in July 2016.

He is expected to receive addition federal jail time for breaching conditions of his statutory release.

“You’re an individual with a very unfortunate, lengthy criminal record,’’ said Orr.

In addition to his most recent convictions and robbery with violence, Carter has been convicted of several thefts, break and enter, and breaches of probation.