A local man received a one-year prison term last week after pleading guilty to stealing a vehicle.
Dion Blom had been in custody since the beginning of April when he was arrested for breaching conditions of a release order from Regina. In Estevan provincial court on May 10, he pleaded guilty to theft over $5,000, impaired driving, driving an unregistered vehicle as well as a number of breaches. A count of break and enter was stayed by the Crown.
Blom took the keys to his roommate's SUV and drove to Regina. The vehicle was vandalized by others while he was there, and they faced charges in Regina provincial court.
Blom was also charged with impaired driving when he was detected driving on Fourth Street in Estevan at about 100 km/h. Upon his arrest he produced two blood-alcohol samples of .18, more than twice the legal limit.
For these offences, presiding Judge Kenn Bellerose accepted the joint submissions by the Crown and defence that both asked for time served in remand and an additional 12 months in jail. Following that, he will be subject to a 12-month probation order.
Blom has a record dating back to 2004, and Bellerose noted that since that time, he has been before the court every year.
In other court proceedings, local man Jerry McCaw received the maximum fine of $1,000 for speeding, after being clocked at 124 km/h on Highway 39 east of Estevan. Bellerose said it was the first time he has ordered a fine for a speeding ticket greater than what the ticket actually was.
RCMP officers pulled McCaw over on the highway, but he refused to produce his driver's licence and said he didn't recognize one RCMP member as a peace officer because she wasn't wearing her hat.
The officers told McCaw that he would be placed under arrest if he did not comply with their request to see his licence. He locked the doors to his vehicle. The officers then warned him he would be charged with obstruction of justice, but he refused to exit his vehicle.
Two more officers were called to the roadside stop. The air was let out of McCaw's tires, and after continuing to talk with him, he eventually exited the vehicle.
Bellerose found that the officers didn't have grounds to arrest McCaw for not producing his licence, because by law he is not obligated to produce that material, he is only required to identify himself when asked. Because that is the case, he was not obstructing justice when he refused to submit to an arrest.
However, Bellerose said that because McCaw turned a routine five to 10 minute traffic stop into a large production with multiple police officers at the scene in order to prove a point, he upped the fine to the maximum.
