A 25-year-old man who drove a vehicle into a Prince George house in November 2023 left court with a $1,000 fine Aug. 11 after pleading guilty to a lesser Motor Vehicle Act offence.
Marinus Earl De Dreu had been charged with impaired driving and operating a vehicle over 80 milligrams blood alcohol content under the Criminal Code for the Nov. 4, 2023 incident.
De Dreu’s Provincial Court trial began last December and was scheduled to continue Aug. 11.
However, his defence lawyer, Jason LeBlond, told Judge Martin Nadon that “a number of events have arisen which have resulted in the agreed resolution of the file.”
The specifics were not disclosed during the hearing.
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bowick said that De Dreu admitted that he was the driver of the vehicle and that he drove the vehicle without due care and attention for the other people in the house.
Nadon agreed to the joint Crown/defence sentencing proposal, which did not include any further ban on driving. The Superintendent of Motor Vehicles will be left to decide on the status of De Dreu’s licence.
Court heard that De Dreu, who is a pulp worker with a power engineering certificate, has no criminal record.
“We don't actually have his driving record, but he does not have any driving record to my knowledge,” Bowick told Nadon. “So he's a true, first offender in that sense and the elevated fine should be sufficient to deter him from this sort of driving in the future.”
Nadon gave De Dreu 90 days to pay the fine.
