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Home My WebLink AboutClinton News Record, 2016-12-14, Page 19Birks fighting charge CONTINUED FROM > PAGE 18 However, the police disclo- sure on Birks' case, which Birks gave to The Signal Star, does not mention that a sobri- ety test was performed at the scene of the accident. There are many other dis- crepancies between the court document and the account Birks has given The Signal Star. The disclosure also quotes Birks as telling the officer that she did not have anything to drink that day. She says that's incorrect. She told The Signal Star that she answered the officer saying she had had a cooler several hours before driving during lunch that day. Also, Birks asserts that she required the assistance of the officer and a witness to open her door to exit the vehicle fol- lowing the accident while the disclosure states she was already free of the car when the OPP arrived. The officer's notes also say she had appeared wobbly and her speech was "slow, slurred, deliberate" and with a "blank glazed stare in her eyes" as reasons to suggest Birks was under the influence of a nar- cotic. Birks accounts for those signs of impairment as having to do with her wearing heeled sandals in a muddy area, suf- fering from symptoms of shock, concussion and pain in her back and from ill-fitting dentures. She said she had "great dif- ficulty" standing because of the conditions of the field, and when paramedics arrived they suggested she go to a hospital due to the possibly that she might have a concus- sion. She declined the para- medics' suggestion because she had her pets back in Guelph waiting for her, though she did agree that if her symptoms worsened she'd go to the hospital as they suggested. "So the police officer heard all this," she asserts. Discrepancies aside, the issue comes down to whether she was impaired at the time of the accident. Following her arrest, Birks was taken to the OPP Walker- ton detachment where she was required to give a urine sample to a drug recognition expert, who said "that there were grounds for Impaired by Drug [charge]," reads the disclosure. According to Dr. Schecter, this urine test is only qualita- tive and not quantitative, "which means that it is impos- sible to know how much can- nabis is in your system:' In other words, it can regis- ter the presence of cannabis in one's system, but not the quantity, which is a problem for medical marijuana users who take the drug frequently enough for it to always be present. "Your urine drug screen can be positive for days or weeks after having last con- sumed cannabis, depending on how regularly the patient is using cannabis" Dr. Schecter wrote. "Even blood work is difficult to interpret as there is no standard number at which patients are considered `impaired: " The Walkerton crown attor- ney did not return The Signal Star's request for comment. Birks says that she was treated well by the arresting officer until she told him she was a medical marijuana user. "His demeanour and behav- iour to me completely changed," she said. "Treated me like a perp, didn't take any- thing I said to him about my condition into consideration:' At the police station she said she was required to per- form a sobriety test, which she failed. "I was extremely wobbly," she said. "I had shooting pains from the one area of the verte- brae where the disk is almost completely gone and I was in a tremendous amount of pain so I was having difficulty in standing up, and every time I went to take a step I was scared my back would give out:' She said she told the ) 41 "A 14 -11-10=ZS 11411 -7471 14 741; Hate iril el Ontario Handi J E ' Quilter ��• Retailer of10 PIthe Year Janome �1/4---0---___........--..... 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She said she lay on the floor sobbing from pain, and only after the first time that she col- lapsed into the door did an officer come check on her, but he did not provide any assistance. She was released into the custody of her friend the fol- lowing morning. She has been charged a $1,000 fine for the offence and a year's suspension to her license. She will have a criminal conviction if found guilty. But she says she is fighting it. However, Legal Aid Ontario has informed her that she is ineligible for legal assistance because she is not facing incarceration if convicted. Birks is also poor, living on disability and she says she can neither pay the $1,000 fine or the fees of a lawyer. Wednesday, December 14, 2016 • News Record 19 If she is convicted, she said the charge would haunt her for longer than the one-year suspension. "It will affect my life for the rest of my life," she said. `And I wasn't impaired and the acci- dent was not cause by my ina- bility to operate that vehicle safely:' She says the charge will pre- vent her from driving for the foreseeable future because she won't be able to afford the insurance. According to Paul Wett- laufer, sales manager at Excal- ibur Insurance in Mitchell, the criminal conviction could affect her for a minimum of six years. If convicted she will be dropped by her current insurer and have to go to what is called a non-standard insurance company and though rates vary these com- panies tend to have a higher base rate with a 50 per cent surcharge. The tool they use to meas- ure what someone should pay for insurance is a driver's abstract of their record. This abstract will contain a person's impaired conviction for three years, he said. However, the conviction comes with a suspension, which must be revealed to the insurance company for the next sixyears. "There are two things at play in an impaired driving conviction: The conviction itself, which stays with you for three years, and the suspen- sion of your driver's license," he said. This, Birks said, will pre- vent her from driving, which will greatly restrict her independence. "I'm extremely upset and I'm not going to have my life totally disrupted by some- thing that is not true" she said. What was supposed to have been a new start has now left her life in "limbo," she said. Without the ability to drive, she must rely upon friends and taxis services for getting groceries and her medicine and she says she has been forced to become something of a "hermit." "I can't move forward with my life here until this is resolved in my favour," she said. "This has terribly disrupted my life beyond belief," she said. "And I think it should be thrown out because it is a complete waste of tax payer money." She says she is currently considering taking legal action against the OPP for how she was treated under their care. As we enter 2017... We're reminded again that Canada is a wonderful place to call `home'; a place where we can raise our families in a safe and secure community. May 2017 be a healthy, and prosperous year for all! fil. investment ill Planning Counsel' IPC SEUL :-:I'-IES CORPORATION Leonard (Len) Lobb CFP, FMA 410 James St., Clinton Ontario 519-482-8887 (toll free) 877-502-8887 len.lobb@ipcsecurities.com p EM Eli