Former military officer sentenced for impaired driving

[3rd Herd]

the usual disclaimer:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=d4769fb3-1540-44fe-9f7f-2345505f2f85&k=25712

Former military officer sentenced for impaired driving
Paula McCooey
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, August 13, 2007
A former military officer caught leaving the scene of an accident while drunk was sentenced Monday to a three-year driving suspension, followed by one-year probation and a $1,200 fine.

According to an agreed statement of facts, 42-year-old Stephen Tappin, a former officer of the Canadian military and French infantry, was driving away from a Canadian Tire store on Dec. 15, 2006 shortly after 8 p.m. when he ran a red light.

Reading from the fact sheet, assistant Crown attorney Jamie Bocking said two cars that had the right of way slammed into the side of Mr. Tappin's silver Grand Prix, causing the car to spin out of control and come to a stop in the opposite direction. Police later found an empty bottle of whisky in the vehicle.

Mr. Tappin, who has a previous conviction for driving while under the influence of alcohol, pleaded to driving while impaired and for failing to stop at the scene of an accident.

Witnesses told police they saw a man exit the car, appear to stumble, and mutter the words "tried to kill me" before walking away. A clerk at a nearby Tim Hortons said a man entered the restaurant and asked the attendant to give him a "large yellow rain coat" so he could walk home.

When an officer saw the man walking near Costco, witnesses confirmed to him he was the man who left the accident scene, where another woman suffered chest pains, but no major injuries were reported.

When the officer approached the man, he said the accused's breath smelled of alcohol, and when a breath sample was taken at 10:50 p.m., he registered a reading of .113, substantially over the legal limit of .08.

Mr. Tappin's lawyer, Joseph Selvaratnam, noted his client suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, and said his client has been deeply affected from his time serving in Bosnia. He said his client was shot while serving there - and has also suffered psychological effects from the "loss of his comrades."

Mr. Selvaratnam said his client has been taking anti-depressant medication, and the combination of the drugs and alcohol caused his impairment.

Mr. Tappin was also ordered to seek counselling to determine whether he suffers with alcohol addiction.

 

[Armymedic]

How does the highlighted portions condon his breaking of several traffic laws and endanger lives?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

French infantry

Is it any wonder we rail against the press?....................unless of course, he was in the services of France.

 

[Kat Stevens]

This just in:
  Robert Picton is known to have driven past CFRC Vancouver on at least two occasions, military link concerns prosecutors.  Why is this worthy of being published?  Plenty of non-former soldiers are convicted of DUI too.  A completely asinine thing to do, to be sure, but I never could figure out why ones former vocation in the military is relevant to current misdeeds.  Always been one of my peeves with the media.

 

[geo]

Former officer of the Canadian Military..... I think not!

Pure drivel.  Lots of Serving and past serving members with PTSD issues.  DUI has nothing to do with it.

Buddy made a decision, a really lousy decision, bot he made several of his own free will
1.  To travel to his favorite drinking extablishment in his own car
2.  To commence drinking while in posession of his car
3.  To drink more than the one or two beverages he should be able handle without impairing his jugement.
Once his jugement was impaired though.... all bets were off...

Looser!

 

[3rd Herd]

How does the highlighted portions condon his breaking of several traffic laws and endanger lives?

I high lighted that portion for a couple of reasons. Personally, I am tired of the PTSD defence for lack of judgement( note in the article this is not his first time), next there is a group of us here that once a month meet, and consume considerable amounts in our "venting" sessions. But, we have a couple of cardinal rules; nobody drives themselves home and despite our conditions at times we are very good at self policing our actions. A result of this has been several of the establishments we frequent are more than happy to have us back and have figured out why we hold these sessions. This in turn has led to a certain degree of respect which took a little while getting used to, sometimes the topic of conversation gets a little "rough" but the understanding from staff is there to the extent that if a "semi private" area is available it is ours.

Next in the reasoning for this post was the "officer"," Canadian military" "French Infantry" and the references to places served. Yet again the media for lack of judgement or "slow news day" syndrome is in some regard throwing us all in the same boat. But I really do like the sentence the judge handed down.