What Lambton OPP didn’t mention, though, was they were trying to break up a party in the early-morning hours of Sept. 25 in Brooke-Alvinston and there were several people, some likely intoxicated, in the area at the time.
“There was a number of youth on the roadway and police were attempting to disperse them,” assistant Crown attorney Sarah Carmody said Thursday in a Sarnia courtroom.
Police noticed Vaughn Brazeau, 30, failing to slow down or move his 2005 Buick over as he passed by around 1:30 am on Nauvoo Road near Petrolia Line.
“The officers observed the driving to be close to some of the youth that were on the road as well as the vehicles,” Carmody said.
An officer got in their cruiser, with the lights already flashing, and pulled him over.
“While speaking to Mr. Brazeau, there was an odor of alcoholic beverage emanating from his breath,” she said.
Just three months earlier, Brazeau had been convicted of careless driving after crashing a Honda Civic into a snow-filled median on Highway 402 in Plympton-Wyoming with alcohol in his system. Along with a $1,100 fine, the judge imposed a one-year Provincial Offenses Act probation order banning him from having any alcohol in his body while driving.
Breath tests that Saturday in September showed he had 42 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood – below the legal limit of 80 milligrams, but higher than zero.
Brazeau was charged with failing to comply with probation, driving with a novice license while having alcohol in his system, and prohibited driving. He pleaded guilty Thursday in provincial offenses court to the first two charges, but not prohibited driving.
He also offered an explanation of what happened that night from his perspective.
“I did slow down, but the police weren’t satisfied with the speed at which I slowed down,” he said. “I believed I was two meters away from either side of anybody on the road, but that wasn’t satisfactory for them.”
Carmody asked for a total of $750 in fines and a six-month extension of his probation. Justice of the peace Kelly Jackson initially said that seemed a bit high, but imposed the suggested sentence when Brazeau, who’s since moved away from Sarnia-Lambton, didn’t object.
She also imposed the probation order extension.
“To drive home the fact that you need to not drive with any alcohol in your system,” she said.