A Nova Scotia man has had an 8 and a half year prison sentence for impaired driving upheld by the Province’s Court of Appeal. He was convicted in February of impaired driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and driving while prohibited. He is also subject to a lifetime driving ban.
The Criminal Code sets out escalating penalties for repeat impaired driving offenders. The mandatory minimum sentence for impaired driving on a first conviction is a $1000 fine. A second conviction will result in a mandatory minimum of 30 days imprisonment. A third or subsequent conviction carries a mandatory minimum of 4 months in prison. The man in this instance has twenty-two previous convictions.
Although impaired driving itself has a maximum penalty of five years in prison, if prosecuted by indictment, the additional convictions for leaving the scene of an accident and driving while prohibited were what pushed the sentence beyond that time frame.
The sentenced was appealed as unduly harsh, but the Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s decision. This is believed to be the longest sentence rendered for an impaired driver in the province of Nova Scotia.