The accused brought a Charter application seeking exclusion of statements made to firefighters, a paramedic, and a police officer following a single-vehicle collision that caused serious bodily harm to his passenger.
He argued the driver-identification statements were compelled by the statutory accident-reporting duty, that the arrest and breath demand lacked reasonable and probable grounds, and that his right to counsel was breached.
The court held the accused failed to prove statutory compulsion, found the arresting officer had both a genuine and objectively reasonable belief that the accused had driven while impaired, and concluded the accused was informed of his right to counsel and never invoked it.
The application to exclude evidence was dismissed.
