Serial drunk driver faces charges again

A man who has been described as “the worst of the worst” drunk drivers in Nova Scotia is in trouble with the law yet again.

Terry Lee Naugle received an 8.5-year prison sentence and a lifetime driving ban in February 2010 after pleading guilty in Dartmouth provincial court to impaired driving, driving while disqualified and leaving the scene of an accident in March 2009.

It was Naugle’s 23rd conviction for impaired driving, failing the breathalyzer or refusing to provide a breath sample.

He also has 15 convictions for driving while prohibited and has served six prison terms.

According to court records, the 62-year-old Gaetz Brook man has allegedly been caught behind the wheel again.

Naugle was charged with impaired driving and driving while prohibited after a traffic stop in Dartmouth in July.

He also faces charges of driving while prohibited and obstructing police after he was pulled over in Shearwater during the Thanksgiving weekend.

Lawyer Tony Amoud appeared in Dartmouth provincial court Tuesday on Naugle's behalf and elected to have the July charges heard in Nova Scotia Supreme Court by a judge and jury.

Judge Dan MacRury ordered Naugle to appear in Supreme Court in Halifax on Jan. 16 to begin the process of setting trial dates.

Meanwhile, Naugle's Shearwater matters are due back in Dartmouth court Jan. 8 in front of a different judge. Amoud said his client will also be electing to go to Supreme Court on those charges.

Anissa MacLeod, MADD Canada's Atlantic director, is familiar with Naugle but didn't know about his latest charges until she was contacted by The Chronicle Herald on Wednesday.

“I'm a little stunned by this,” MacLeod said. “That's the nicest word I can come up with right now. You're catching me a tiny bit off-guard.

“My reaction is complete disappointment. It's abhorrent that we're in a situation that someone who has been stopped and charged and convicted so many times can still … be drinking and driving and putting people's lives at risk.”

MacLeod said MADD gets a lot of help from its policing partners, “but our system clearly isn't working. … Thank goodness no victims were created here.”

She said Naugle's election to Supreme Court looks like a strategy to delay having to go to prison again if he's convicted.

On March 28, 2009, a Chevrolet Cavalier that Naugle was driving sideswiped a Honda Pilot that was stopped on an exit ramp off Highway 102 at Enfield.

The owners of the sport utility vehicle, the McMillan family of West Tatamagouche, Colchester County, were on their way home after a day of shopping in Halifax when the Honda ran out of gas.

David McMillan parked the SUV on the shoulder of the ramp and jogged to the nearby Irving Big Stop to get a can of gas while his wife and daughter remained in the vehicle.

As McMillan was returning to the Honda, Naugle's car struck the driver's side of the SUV and sped away. McMillan ran back to the vehicle and, after being reassured that his wife and daughter were OK, poured the fuel into the tank and took off after the Cavalier, which had pulled into the Big Stop parking lot.

Naugle fled on foot across Highway 102 and was arrested by RCMP officers who had been having a meal at the Big Stop. He was staggering, had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, and in his pocket had a newspaper clipping from the Herald detailing a 3.5-year sentence he had received in 2006.

Naugle finished serving that sentence 27 days before the crash.

Prosecutor Cheryl Byard, who has since retired, asked for a 10-year sentence, saying Naugle was “the worst of the worst known offenders when it comes to impaired drivers in Nova Scotia.”

Byard said Naugle had repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for driving prohibitions, came before the court with a cavalier attitude and showed no remorse for his actions.

“Given the number and the nature of his previous convictions, it is rather amazing that Mr. Naugle has not killed himself or others while operating a motor vehicle,” Judge Frank Hoskins said. “Nothing up to this point has deterred or discouraged him from reoffending. Indeed, the only gaps in his long criminal record ... are when he was in prison.

“Obviously, Mr. Naugle does not recognize that continuing to operate a motor vehicle while impaired or disqualified is inappropriate behaviour and is unacceptable to society, or he simply does not care.”

Hoskins said his paramount consideration at sentencing had to be protection of the public.

“There is little doubt that he is a menace to society when he is driving a motor vehicle,” the judge said of Naugle. “If he does not break this long-entrenched pattern of criminal misconduct, he will likely either seriously injure or kill himself and/or others.”

Naugle claimed the 8.5-year sentence was excessive, but it was upheld by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 2011.

“Mr. Naugle was not sentenced more severely because he is an alcoholic, but for committing crimes that reflected a complete disregard for accepted norms of behaviour,” Justice Duncan Beveridge wrote in the Appeal Court decision.