Teen’s drunken ride ends with injured passenger

A teen avoided likely jail time because he was not yet 18 when he went on a drunken ride last November through Steinbach that ended with a crash and injured passenger.

“Well this is a sad situation. Thankfully it didn’t turn into something more serious than it very easily could have been,” said Senior Judge Robert Heinrichs during sentencing in Steinbach court Nov. 15.

The teen is now 18 but cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“What the Crown attorney said in the beginning is correct. If this happened… your 18th birthday or later, between then and now, what we would be talking about most likely is the number of months or perhaps years you’d be spending in custody,” added Judge Heinrichs.

The teen pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing bodily harm. He did this with an unregistered vehicle while breaking restrictions on his driver’s license.

He received 18 months of supervised probation with an order to attend any counseling as directed, including any residential treatment for alcohol abuse. He also got 20 hours of community service, a one-year driving prohibition, and $150 worth of fines.

He would have earned an automatic five-year driving suspension if he was 18 at the time of the offence.

Crown attorney Jennifer Neufeld described the agreed facts of the case. Just before midnight on Nov. 25, 2023, a witness called in to RCMP to report that he was almost hit by a male driving erratically. The car had no plates and a female passenger.

The teen stopped at the Shell gas station to fuel up. Two Steinbach RCMP officers were patrolling near the Shell when the call came in. One officer spotted the car and pulled up behind it.

When the officer turned on his emergency lights, the car took off speeding through the parking lot and dodging the second officer’s vehicle that came to help out. The teen drove the car through the ditch and headed north on Highway 12. He turned on the grass median and headed south back into the city.

The officers did not pursue so as to avoid a high speed chase through the city. They radioed their colleagues to keep an eye open for the little black car.

It was not long before officers spotted the car parked near the 7-11 on Brandt Street. In that short time, the teen had already crashed the car. Items were strewn across the road.

“One of the first officers on scene advised that a female was found screaming, laying on the ground,” described Neufeld.

The driver got out of the car and put his hands up, telling police “I give up, I’m not going to run.”

He was arrested and identified as photos of the scene were taken. The back window and passenger window were both smashed. Blood was found on and around the front passenger window.

Police found that he had collided with a pole and sign. The passenger suffered a laceration on her eyebrow and multiple cuts and scrapes from her head going through the passenger window on impact.

Multiple opened Twisted Teas – a malt liquor mixed with tea – were found in the car along with open cannabis containers and grinders. The driver would blow two readings of 0.10.

The legal limit for an adult is 0.08. Under the graduated licensing program in Manitoba, there is a zero blood alcohol content mandated for a minimum of the first five years of driving. Manitoba Public Insurance also levies its own, usually longer driving suspensions.

The judge agreed to ordering the probation with the potential for residential alcohol treatment after the teen told a probation officer writing up a pre-sentence report he had no intention of quitting drinking, saying “I like the way it makes me feel.”