Woman fined for smoking in bathroom of airplane

A 31-year-old woman was fined recently for lighting up in an airplane bathroom.

Leandra Lynne Newman had originally been facing two charges under the Canadian Aviation Regulations, one for smoking in a lavatory and the other alleging she failed to comply with instructions from a cabin crew.

Last month, she pleaded guilty to the first of the two charges, while federal Crown prosecutor Robin Neufeld stayed the second. Newman was fined $750, the result of a joint recommendation between Crown and defence counsel.

Neufeld told the court Newman went into the washroom at one point during the Jan. 6 flight from Toronto to Regina. While she was in there, a flight attendant heard the toilet being flushed a number of times and, when Newman at last emerged, the flight attendant smelled smoke.

The employee confronted Newman and, when the plane landed in Regina, police were waiting.

When Newman was interviewed by police, she showed some signs of intoxication, court heard.

A spokesman for WestJet declined to comment on what, if any, sanctions it might have subsequently imposed on Newman. Her defence lawyer David Halvorsen declined to comment.

Newman was back in court earlier this week to be sentenced for unrelated charges pertaining to a Feb. 8 incident in which she ran from a three-vehicle collision involving minor injuries in Regina.

When police checked out the abandoned vehicle, they located a shotgun wrapped in a blanket.

Police went to the home of the vehicle’s registered owner and subsequently arrested Newman.

Newman had no licence for the gun, and court heard it had belonged to her grandfather who had passed away. Halvorsen told the court his client was taking it from her residence after having had a disagreement with her roommate.

The sentence for hit and run and careless storage of a firearm — a total $1,500 in fines — includes a 10-year firearms prohibition and an order that she forfeit the gun.

Judge Anna Crugnale-Reid, noting Newman has no previous criminal record, said she would “chalk this up to being out of character.”