(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
January 28, 2023 - 7:00 AM
A man facing a distracted driving ticket caught a lucky break when the hefty fine was tossed in a Kelowna court.
A Kelowna judge decided this week Jean Michel St. Martin's 19-month wait for a trial was unreasonable, despite a Crown prosecutor's attempt to blame a COVID-19 court closure.
He was ticketed for using a electronic device behind the wheel in March 2021 and filed to dispute it within a month.
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A Crown prosecutor claimed a surge of COVID-19 cases in January 2022 and a subsequent 24-day court closure forced the delay, but judge Andrew Tam didn't buy it.
He noted traffic court was operating as normal since July 2020, despite pandemic restrictions, and the January closure should have only caused a 40-day delay to catch up. St. Martin's trial was first scheduled for October 2022 and he wasn't notified until about two months earlier.
After waiting 19-and-a-half months for a trial to dispute his ticket, St. Martin applied to have the ticket tossed because of the unreasonable delay.
Tam didn't discuss whether St. Martin used a device behind the wheel at all in the Jan. 25 decision. Instead, he focused on whether the court had a good reason to take so long to schedule St. Martin's trial.
Tam agreed with St. Martin's assertion the delay breached his Charter rights and St. Martin avoided the $368 fine.
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