A career criminal who has accumulated fifteen offenses for his dangerous driving, and author of a fatal hit and run in 2001, was sentenced to two years in jail, this time for having driven while being heavily drugged with GHB.
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“The fact of continuing to use his vehicle in the circumstances where he is intoxicated is clearly another way of having little concern for others”, wrote Judge Normand Bonin in his recent judgment.
He ruled that Bruno Facchino will have to serve a sentence of two years less a day for driving while impaired by drugs. The 55-year-old man will also be banned from driving a motor vehicle for the next ten years.
The driver is still at large, having appealed his guilty verdict.
Facchino was spotted lying in front of his steering wheel in the middle of the road under an overpass off Highway 40 one morning in January 2017.
15 to 20 kilometers
Surprised by an individual, he “raises his seat, accelerates quickly and resumes driving on the highway, constantly zigzagging between the lanes, sometimes suddenly applying the brakes and adopting extremely erratic driving”, we read. in the judge’s decision.
“Without being certain of the distances, the witness Leblanc estimates that he followed the accused over a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers,” it added.
Once intercepted by the police, Facchino was so intoxicated that he was, for example, unable to identify himself. He later admitted to having intentionally used GHB, commonly known as the “date-rape drug”.
“The evidence at trial demonstrated that this was not the first time the accused had used GHB, he knew of its strong intoxicating effects and yet he took no steps to ensure that he did not drive,” is mentioned among the aggravating circumstances of the decision.
A long list
This conviction is in addition to Facchino’s 14 criminal records related to his driving between February 1998 and April 2013, including four for driving while impaired.
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Bruno Facchino caused the death of Richard Lavoie in April 2001 by overtaking on the right. Facchino had fled the scene.
In 2003, he was sentenced to 28 months in jail for fatally ramming the vehicle of Richard Lavoie, a 31-year-old Canadian army recruiter, while overtaking.
He had fled the scene on foot after the impact to surrender to authorities 10 months later, it was reported. The newspaper at the time.
That’s not all
These criminal offenses represent a meager fraction of Bruno Facchino’s legal setbacks.
Also according to the court, he has accumulated 51 other records for drugs and breaking and entering, among others.
In 2017, the Sûreté du Québec linked him to a large cargo theft network. Its participants juggled everything from luxury cars, cheese and aluminum to grapes and even diapers.
Judge Bonin’s decision also notes that Facchino is involved in two other cases, in particular for possession of narcotics and “breach of condition in connection with weapons”.
Danger behind the wheel
- 14 criminal driving records from February 1998 to April 2013;
- 1 dangerous driving,
- 4 driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs;
- 2 refusal to provide a breath sample;
- 1 negligence causing death while operating a vehicle;
- 1 failure to stop in an accident resulting in death;
- 5 conducts despite a ban.