A Crown prosecutor failed this week to have her conviction in an impaired driving case overturned. The lawyer had claimed her “privileged status” to try to get out of it, then locked herself in her home, while her house was surrounded by the police.
Posted at 12:33 p.m.
Alice Bourbonnais-Rougeau was found guilty in Municipal Court last year of hit-and-run and driving her vehicle while impaired by alcohol. She received a criminal record and a $1,000 fine. She was provisionally disbarred by the Quebec Bar in August 2023.
The 31-year-old lawyer was a prosecutor in the Serious Crime Office at the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) at the time of the events in April 2021. In the hope of saving her career, she had taken the first instance decision to call. Judge James L. Brunton of the Superior Court, however, rejected all his arguments on September 30.
The case dates back to April 24, 2021. That evening, Alice Bourbonnais-Rougeau struggled to park her vehicle, despite all the space available. She first encroaches on a cycle path, then suddenly accelerates and hits the back of a parked car. The lawyer gets out of her vehicle, dropping her keys.
A witness calls him and informs him that he must call the police. “We’ll work it out,” Alice Bourbonnais-Rougeau told him, offering him her business card. Visibly tipsy, the lawyer walks towards her in a “shaky” manner and again offers her card to the witness.
“We’ll work it out, you don’t know who I am,” she told him.
Half an hour after the accident, the police smelled a strong odor of alcohol coming from the driver. She then told them that she was a Crown prosecutor and “knew the investigators she was going to call”. “It is a privileged status that she tries to use in order to place herself beyond the reach of the agents,” said the judge of the Municipal Court.
Alice Bourbonnais-Rougeau then barricaded herself in her home for five hours while waiting for the police to obtain a warrant to arrest her.
She did not testify in her defense.
In her appeal, Alice Bourbonnais-Rougeau’s lawyer argued that her client may have left the scene due to “panic, embarrassment or fear of being wrongly accused.” Also, his departure could have been due to his intention to respect the COVID curfew in force at the time, the defense supposed.
Arguments rejected by Judge Brunton.
“With respect, the appellant is wrong. The conclusion that the appellant left the scene to avoid contact with the police because she feared she was impaired was the only reasonable inference based on an analysis of the evidence as a whole. concluded the judge.
Related News :