A woman who killed a would-be police officer four years ago after returning from a drunken Christmas dinner has pleaded in court to avoid being wrongly charged with drunk driving.
3 liter bottle of wine, sparkling wine, Stinger Shooter, gin, rum, vodka. A wide range of alcohol was available to Audrey Perrotte and friends at a Christmas dinner just before she caused tragedy.
At around 5:20 a.m. on December 23, 2018, the 31-year-old woman collided head-on with an oncoming vehicle on Route 158 in Mirabel.
Archive photo
The violent collision occurred on December 23, 2018 on Route 158 in Mirabel.
The other driver, Julien Lachance, 21, died instantly. His passenger survived.
Audrey Perrotte was charged a year later with causing death and injury while driving. His trial ended last week at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse.
At the time, no first responder suspected that the driver at fault might have been drunk. She reiterated that she fell asleep, worked more than 50 hours a week and had little sleep in the last 24 hours.
Controversial results
However, a few weeks later, an investigator of the file learned from a witness that alcohol was pouring down at dinner.
“She was drunk but not ready yet,” described Marie-Ève Langlois, who left the party around 11:30 p.m.
Police confiscated Ms Perrotte’s blood samples for analysis. Result: She had more than one and a half times the blood alcohol limit in her blood.
At her trial, the defendant challenged these findings and questioned the storage of the blood vial, which had been left uncapped on a counter for many hours.
“We cannot be sure that the vial analyzed has not been contaminated or altered. We should therefore have reasonable doubts about the result,” argued defender Me Jean-Daniel Debkoski.
The latter attempted a Carter-type defense. His client testified that he had only consumed two glasses of red wine, a champagne flute and a shooter for more than 10 hours. With that drinking scenario, his weight and height, his blood alcohol level should have been zero, experts said.
This defense, dubbed the “two-beer defense,” is no longer admissible in court due to a “presumption of accuracy” regarding breathalyzers and blood samples taken by police using approved containers.
Alcohol evaporates?
But in this case, the vials were not approved and the storage conditions were not met, so that presumption no longer applies, Mr Debkoski suggested.
However, contamination of a blood sample left outdoors is unlikely, pleaded Crown Prosecutor Me Sédrick Valiquette.
Moreover, the only possible ramification of such an oversight was that the alcohol might have “evaporated” from the sample, he pleaded, adding that he did not believe the defendant when she said she was drinking little on the night of the tragedy.
►Audrey Perrotte was convicted of driving with a disability in 2013.
Killed while acting as designated driver
With kind approval
The victim, Julien Lachance, had just graduated from the National Police School of Quebec.
The young man mowed down by a woman accused of drunk driving had just picked up his girlfriend, who thought she had drunk too much to drive.
“Julien was always the designated driver for his friends, he refused to let anyone drive after he got drunk,” said the victim’s mother, Elisabeth Jones.
Her son was killed two days before Christmas four years ago. He had just graduated from the National Police School of Quebec.
“Ever since he was little he wanted to be a police officer,” Ms Jones said.
Like his father, who was captain in the Sûreté du Québec in 2018 and has since retired.
Designated driver
At the time of the tragedy, Julien Lachance was returning from the 911 emergency call center in Mascouche, where he had been working for a few months. Around 4 a.m. he made his way to Sainte-Sophie where his girlfriend was partying with friends.
“I drove to the party, but I had one drink too many, so Julien came to pick me up,” Frédérique Vézina testified at Audrey Perrotte’s trial.
Unfortunately, on the way to the young man’s apartment, they crossed the paths of the accused. The latter has branched off its track in a bend.
“I have no memories of the collision. After that, Julien still breathed a little, I could hear his breathing,” said Ms. Vézina.
When police arrived, she panicked to see that all efforts were directed at her.
“They didn’t want to see Julien, they just came up to me. I wanted them to go to Julien,” she added. But his bosom friend was already deceased.
intervention of a friend
Also sad irony: one of the first police officers who intervened with them knew Julien Lachance well. The latter was so disfigured that his friend did not immediately recognize him.
“He came to our house every week when we were at CEGEP. So there’s no one I wouldn’t have recognized,” said agent Philippe-Olivier Desjardins, who worked for the Mirabel police in 2018, touched.
“When we had to get him out, I looked at him and then I was like, ‘Oh, he’s a guy I know,'” he added.
►Judge Éric Côté is scheduled to make his decision in 2023.
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