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It was almost 8:30 pm on July 31st 2014 when Sukhvinder Singh Rai entered the breathalyzer room at the OPP Burlington detachment to give a sample, where he would measure a 0.226.
“That’s way over the legal limit.”
The sample was taken at 8:32pm, five hours after the crash. Another test, taken 22 minutes later, was almost the same. It was then that Rai was told that he would be charged, and he begged “please help me sir”
At 3:35 pm that day, the dump truck with the bin driven by Rai crashed into the Skyway Bridge. Court has already heard about a bottle of alcohol that was found inside the truck. But a small video clip from the security camera inside the OPP Burlington detachment taken before Rai’s official test could turn out to be a key piece of evidence in the case that could help Rai. In it you hear a conversation believed to be between Constable Andrew Halliday and the OPP breath technician about the time that Rai spent inside an OPP cruiser. It is difficult to hear, but the defence contends that Halliday makes reference to Rai being in the cruiser for three hours before the test.
Section 254 sub section two of the criminal code says that a demand for a breath sample must be made within three hours after a person stops driving.
Yesterday Halliday testified that he gave Rai a roadside breathalyzer at 7:32 pm on July 31st, 2014, almost four hours after the crash. Halliday also testified that he made the demand for a breath sample at 7:22 pm, three and a half hours after the crash.
Defence lawyer David Locke argued that the small audio recording is key in showing that Constable Halliday knew exactly how much time had passed, and that he was aware that they were outside of the three hour time limit.
Today while under cross examination, Halliday said “the time never occurred to me until after he (Rai) was released.”
Later on defence lawyer David Locke asked point blank “you knew when you administered the roadside test that it was outside the time limit, and you did it anyway.”
Halliday said: “No, I did not.”
