Crown denied civil forfeiture of Speeder's motorcycle
 

"A B.C. Supreme Court justice has turned down an application by the government to seize the motorcycle of a man clocked at more than three times the speed limit.

The decision is being lauded by the man’s lawyer, who said it could have been used as a precedent for the government to seize property for the simple act of speeding.

Jason Alan Dery was clocked driving his Ducati motorcycle at more than 200 kilometres an hour in a 60 km/h zone on July 2, 2011, while on Willis Point Road.

The director of civil forfeiture took Dery to court in an attempt to seize the bike, valued by the government at between $7,400 and $12,200.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden said in a ruling posted online Friday that he was unaware of any other reported decisions of a court in B.C. or another province that considered seizing such property for a motor-vehicle offence.

The majority of the cases cited by counsel were against property used for the cultivation of marijuana, he noted.

Bowden said while he does not condone Dery’s behaviour, the government didn’t prove the defendant’s actions amounted to dangerous driving under the Criminal Code or did it prove the bike was an “instrument of unlawful activity” under the Civil Forfeiture Act.

Barclay Johnson, Dery’s lawyer, called the proceedings a “test case,” and said a victory for the government would have set an important precedent for the Crown.

“This would have been the first case in British Columbia that would have given a green light to civil forfeiture proceedings for simple speeding,” he said, adding the Crown rolled the dice and lost.

Johnson questioned using civil forfeiture laws to go after speeders when a mechanism exists through ICBC to deal with the issue. He said the focus should remain on the driver and not his property.

He said if somebody breaks a speeding law, the person should have to pay a fine, and if the offence is bad enough, their licence should be taken away, and in the most severe cases a driver should face a lifetime ban.

“There’s a pretty severe system of penalties already in existence that deal with road offences,” he said.

The Ministry of Justice declined to comment because there’s a 30-day appeal period, adding in an email that a final decision on an appeal will be made in the coming weeks.

Bowden said the defendant’s “uncontradicted” evidence for the July 2, 2011, event was that the road was long and straight, the weather was sunny and clear with good visibility, its surface was dry and there were no other vehicles on the road or in sight.

He said there were no pedestrians on the road or in sight, and the Ducati was in perfect working condition and its brakes and tires had recently been replaced.

Dery has committed 39 motor-vehicle offences and received five 24-hour driving prohibitions since 1990 and paid fines, victim-surcharge levies and driver-penalty points totalling $3,600, Bowden said.

Sgt. Steve Eassie of the Saanich Police Department said the director of civil forfeitures didn’t provide enough information for a decision to be rendered in the prosecution’s favour.

He said Willis Point Road attracts people who like to “test out their vehicles,” because it is long and straight, but the speed limit is 60 km/h.” Police will continue to enforce that limit."

So happy the civil forfeiture pigfuckers lost this, would have been a dangerous precedent. Three cheers for Justice Bowden!

The first time a judge allows a forfeiture of assets due to speeding it's all going down hill from there. Glad this judge had some sense, unlike some of them. This is the situation we were all fearing when they introduced the civil forfeiture laws.

wow, guy sure has quite the record.. lol


definitely glad of the outcome though.

3-4 times the limit is "simple speeding"? :okay:

Why is this guy even allowed to have a DL

IE. this is a lot of power granted TO the government BY the same government?

Scary shit.

I find it can even be scary to use in in its original intention. Obviously, I get that we're trying to keep gangsters from driving to court cases about their criminal dealings in their hummers that they bought with their criminal dealings. But just as you said, its that slippery slope that we're even trying a case like this for speeding in the first place.

That to me says that the law was written with few limitations, and that says to me its a poor law. Passed, silently and quickly, in Canadian style with a majority government with minimal debate.

Practicing for Isle of Man TT

Like NOT having one is going to stop him? Idiots like this will just continue to ride/drive under suspension/prohibition.

To me the shows the true intentions of our government. The fact they thought they could try this and win implies they want to be able to govern us with such heavy handed authority and that is far from any semblance of freedom.

Here are the rules to crime in Canada:

If you are a native and you're sorry, let him go
If you raped a girl, you didn't mean it, she's a ho
If you are an addict, give him money, 'cause he's po
If you're speeding really fast, all your belongings gotta go

todays lesson in poetry by........GRIDLOCK!!!!!! yaaaaaayyyy!!!

Many things can be said about me, but one of them is not a lack of effort in my posts.

I agree with the courts denying the government of the forfeiture. At the same time, what do you suppose could be done to prevent this guy from behind a hazard to the community?

at least he will be driving while prohib, and when he does get caught it will keep adding to his record, possibly criminally, instead of meaningless pts to his driving record.

Well this is the thing: there are instances where people simply flip off the law, the government, and most importantly, all the rest of society... this guy is out there doing whatever the fuck he wants with zero concern or regard for the safety of anyone else. The law doesn't provide for putting him in a hole and throwing away the key, and it doesn't provide for any more than temporarily depriving him of his weapon of not-giving-a-fuck.

It DOES *theoretically* provide for PERMANENTLY depriving him of his transport, which if not stopping this behaviour, will at least slow him down for a while. Unfortunately, while applying civil forfeiture in most cases may be extreme... in this case, I don't think it would have been. This person's record shows he's someone who should be limited to the heel-toe express for the rest of his natural life.

And will still make no difference, if his past record is any indication. Would be interesting to actually see his entire record; I'd be surprised if there isn't already at least one DWP charge on there.

Unless you lock him up in jail, there is really no way to prevent him from driving.....

And unfortunately, Canadian law doesn't provide for that.

nope.

Heaven forbid he plows into a schoolbus and kills a dozen kids or something, the law STILL doesn't support putting him away for any substantial length of time.

Great news!

Fuck the police and fuck the government. If people are blind to see what they are doing to us, eventually we are going to have zero liberties left.

If self-absorbed assholes who think the rules don't apply to them weren't constantly TAKING liberties with society's wishes, heavy-handed rules wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

You want to blame someone, blame the few rotten apples who seem to revel in ruining things for everyone else.

$3600??? That is a ridiculously low number if you think about it. One excessive speeding ticket nowadays costs $483? The DRP is $320 for 3 years, so thats $960. One single excessive speeding ticket would cost him $1443. So how is the remaining $2200 split among the 38 other driving offenese and 5 suspensions?

And lol. Someone think of the kidss!! He must be travelling at the speed of light or something haha

Tell ya what, go learn something about Grade 9 physics before speaking again. Here's a formula for you to start with: F=ma