Kelowna Bylaw officers stand at the homeless camp days after the incident.

Image Credit: Carli Berry

A man who drunkenly drove through a Kelowna homeless camp was sentenced Thursday more than two years after the collision, and he won't be going to jail.

Tyler Grant Manchur, 32, was instead given a 23-month conditional sentence, including one year of house arrest. He will be on curfew with a host of other conditions.

A Kelowna Provincial Court judge sentenced him, March 13, attaching a five-year order prohibiting Manchur from driving and from drinking alcohol.

"This is a very long prohibition and it will be very onerous, but based on the conclusion of (a psychologist) that he presents a moderate risk to reoffend, unless he participates in treatment for substance misuse... I have concluded that abstinence is a key aspect of this sentence to ensure protection of the public," a Kelowna Provincial Court judge said.

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His September 2022 drive through the Okanagan Rail Trail encampment in Kelowna left a 50-year-old man and a tent trapped under his truck. People were yelling and the victim, Jeffrey O'Claire, was conscious and struggling to breathe.

Speculation and fear in the aftermath left some in the encampment to wonder if it was deliberate.

Manchur claimed the collision wasn't due to alcohol and instead claimed he must have been drugged, but the evidence suggested that wasn't true.

In January, the court heard Manchur drank 11 ounces of liquor, four beers and inhaled an "unknown substance" to his right nostril within three hours at the Liquid Zoo nightclub.

Behind the wheel of his 2019 Dodge Ram, he crashed through a chainlink fence on Ethel Street, then drove through the homeless camp around 2 a.m.

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He blew twice over the legal alcohol limit when police arrived. There was no evidence presented in court to suggest he intentionally drove into the camp.

Manchur took responsibility and pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing bodily harm, but told a court-appointed psychologist he couldn't understand how he got so drunk. He still believed he was drugged.

In January, there were concerns in court over the case taking longer than an 18-month limit, but defence didn't seek to have the case tossed. Instead, both Crown and defence lawyers pitched a joint submission to the judge, a 23-month house arrest order, which she agreed to on Thursday.

Manchur has to pay a $1,500 fine within a year, and before 2028 he will also have to complete 100 hours of community service. A three-year probation order will follow his conditional sentence.

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