A Surrey provincial court judge has dismissed an application for a stay of proceedings by a man whom he found drove drunk, sped in an oncoming lane and smashed into another car head-on, injuring both himself and the other driver, a 63-year-old woman.
Harminder Singh Sakhon's lawyer unsuccessfully argued that his client's right to be tried within a reasonable time was breached.
Judge Jay Solomon in his Sept. 10 reasons for judgment noted that the "findings of fact after trial" are that Sakhon had a 194 mg% blood alcohol concentration on March 29, 2020 when he crashed his red GTO into a Honda Pilot, and was himself extracted from his auto with the 'Jaws of Life' and airlifted to Royal Columbian Hospital, where he was treated for "significant injuries resulting in a lengthy hospitalization."
Solomon found him guilty of three related crimes – dangerous driving causing bodily harm, impaired driving causing bodily harm and driving with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood within two hours after driving and causing bodily harm – on Jan. 17, 2024.
The provincial court's ceiling for unreasonable delay is 18 months with the burden being on the Crown to rebut a presumption of unreasonableness based on exceptional circumstances beyond its control.
"The Crown submits that after deducting delay attributable to the defence and exceptional circumstances, the remaining delay is under the 18 month ceiling and therefore the application should be dismissed," Solomon noted.
The judge decided some of the delay, which he deducted from the total, was caused by "a combination of discrete events that included the unavailability of witnesses due to illness, the death of Crown counsel’s father, time needed for written submissions, and most particularly the novel and complex evidence to the contrary defence pursued by the defence that significantly expanded the issues at trial.
"These discrete events are exceptional circumstances that were reasonably unforeseeable or unavoidable and could not be mitigated by the Crown and the justice system," Solomon concluded.
"After deductions from total delay of defence caused delay and exceptional circumstances, the remaining delay is approximately 14.5 months. Accordingly, the defence application for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay is dismissed."
