A2

By Cheryl Norrad

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Thomas Wayne Tompkins, 49, of Bath was tried and found guilty in provincial court last Tuesday on impaired charges stemming from an RCMP checkpoint in Carlow on May 6, 2007.

According to Crown witness Const. Jonathan Holmes, the accused was apprehended after the officer smelled alcohol on him. A can of beer was also observed in the backseat of the vehicle. A subsequent search of the red Ford Explorer yielded several empty cans of beer.

Const. Holmes said it was at this point Tompkins was taken into custody, read his rights, given a demand for a breath test and transported to the detachment in Florenceville.

After arriving at the detachment, Const. Holmes said Tompkins requested to urinate. He was accommodated in a nearby washroom. The door was kept ajar so Const. Holmes could see nothing was ingested by the accused while urinating.

While keeping watch on Tompkins, Const. Holmes said he was approached by his partner, Const. Matthew Gaudet. He informed Const. Holmes there appeared to be a can of beer in an arm of Tompkins' jacket.

When asked by the Crown why he didn't search Tompkins to remove it, Const. Holmes replied that in the past searches sometimes turned into confrontations. He wanted to get the breathalyzer test over before risking an outburst by the accused.

Const. Holmes said Const. Aldrin Guiste administered the breathalyzer test to Tompkins who blew a fail on both samples.

Once the test was complete, Const. Holmes said he searched Tompkins. He removed the beer from the wet sleeve of the man's coat. It was a half empty can of Molson Canadian, which the officer promptly dumped out.

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Hilary Hargrove, Const. Holmes admitted that, while it wasn't unusual to forgo a search in a drinking and driving case, it was also complacency on his part that night for not searching Tompkins right after arriving at the detachment.

When he was on the stand to testify, Tompkins claimed he drank most of the beer in his jacket sleeve "in three big gulps" while he urinated at the detachment.

He claimed he snuck it out of his jacket without Const. Holmes detecting his behaviour. Whereas he'd only had slight symptoms of impairment at the checkstop earlier, Tompkins inferred that it was this alcohol ingested at the detachment that caused him to fail the breathalyzer test.

Crown prosecutor Ken Oliver marvelled at how Tompkins could urinate, get the beer from the arm of his jacket and drink it without Const. Holmes noticing just outside the bathroom door.

The accused claimed he couldn't be seen by Const. Holmes behind the door with it open only a few inches.

After an afternoon of listening to testimony, Judge J.G. McNamee meted out his judgment without fuss. He found Tompkins guilty on count one of having a blood-alcohol level exceeding the legal limit and stayed count two of driving while impaired.

A pre-sentence report was requested by the defence.

Sentencing was set over to Sept. 26.