CORNER BROOK, N.L. — Dylan Woods-Boone may have turned himself into police and entered guilty pleas to the charges he was facing, but that wasn’t enough for a Corner Brook judge to allow him to serve his sentence on a conditional or intermittent basis.
Woods-Boone, 23, of Corner Brook was sentenced to 60 days in jail during an appearance in provincial court on July 18. He pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to comply with a probation order, one count of flight from police and one count of impaired driving.
The Crown had sought a global sentence of 90 days in jail and a two-year driving prohibition.
Woods-Boone had argued for a lesser sentence of 60 to 75 days on the first three charges, a $2,200 fine for the impaired driving and a driving prohibition of 15 to 24 months.
His lawyer, Jamie Luscombe, asked that the jail time be served conditionally in the community.
Judge Wayne Gorman agreed to a lesser jail time. But, considering what he heard of the circumstances of the charges and the offender, he decided it should be served as straight jail time. He did impose a shorter driving prohibition of 18 months.
Woods-Boone’s most recent charges were laid on July 17 after the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary stopped him for suspected impaired driving on the north shore of the Bay of Islands.
Police had received a report of a driver in a silver Dodge pickup driving all over the road and when they headed to the area they saw the truck, being driven by Woods-Boone in such a manner.
Approached by police, he told them he wasn’t allowed to drive and had nothing on the truck, meaning it wasn’t registered. A later check revealed Woods-Boone had been suspended from driving since September, 2017, and that he owed $18,633 in outstanding fines.
Breath samples taken by police showed Woods-Boone was two and a half times over the legal limit, with readings of 220 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood and 200 mg in 100 ml.
He was charged with impaired driving and breach of probation.
The other breach of probation charge and the flight from police charge stemmed from a March 16 incident after he was observed by police driving an ATV on a city street in the Penny’s Avenue area. Police recognized him from previous dealings.
Woods-Boone drove off when police attempted a traffic stop, turning onto Crestview Road without stopping or slowing down.
Police lost sight of the ATV and later found it stuck in a snowbank near a basketball court in the area. Woods-Boone wasn’t around, but later contacted police and turned himself in, admitting he saw them and fled from them. He was bound by a probation order at that time, didn’t have a driver's licence and was suspended from driving.
Woods-Boone has a criminal record with convictions as a youth and an adult. Many of the convictions were for breaches of court orders.
That was something that went against his favour. Gorman said that shows it doesn’t matter what the court orders, Woods-Boone isn’t going to comply with any order that a judge makes.
The judge said he couldn’t grant a conditional sentence as Woods-Boone had shown himself to be a danger to the public through his impaired and erratic driving and pointed out such a sentence should encourage him to comply with court orders, but again that is something Woods-Boone has not done in the past.
He was also not satisfied that an intermittent sentence was appropriate.
A number of other charges against him were withdrawn.
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