A Mountie charged with obstruction of justice in a crash that killed a young motorcyclist was addicted to alcohol at the time, a B.C. court has heard.
Cpl. Benjamin "Monty" Robinson is on trial in New Westminster Supreme Court for his actions after he struck Orion Hutchinson's motorcycle with his Jeep at a Tsawwassen intersection on Oct. 25, 2008. Crown prosecutors allege that Robinson gave his licence to a witness and then left the 21-year-old biker dying in the street while he walked home to drink two shots of vodka.
Addictions specialist Dr. Paul Sobey testified Monday that he assessed Robinson last month and found that he would have met the criteria for alcohol dependence in 2008. Sobey said that the officer's alleged drinking after the crash is consistent with an addiction.
The doctor also told the court that Robinson was under a lot of stress and had been isolating himself following his role in the 2007 Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport.
But under cross-examination, the doctor admitted that he didn't interview anyone else about Robinson's supposed alcoholism, or look at any medical records before completing his assessment. He also said it was the first time he'd been asked to form such an opinion more than three years after the fact.
Evidence presented by the Crown suggests that after Robinson returned to the scene of the fatal crash, he told the investigating officer that he had been drinking to calm his nerves.
Earlier on Monday, Robinson's former high school classmate Anne Marie Rough testified that she overheard the officer at a 2007 Christmas party discussing ways to evade drunk-driving charges. Rough told the court that one method he described was to leave your licence at the scene of a collision, drink some shots and then come back. That way, there would be no way to tell when the alcohol was in your system.
On the night Hutchinson was killed, Robinson failed two separate police breathalyzer tests. That led Delta police to recommend a charge of impaired driving causing death, but prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to support that charge.
Robinson is currently suspended from the RCMP and is also awaiting trial on a perjury charge related to Dziekanski's death. A special prosecutor who reviewed the case ruled out any charges linked to the conduct of the four Mounties involved on the night of the fatal encounter, but found there was enough evidence to show that the officers deliberately misled investigators about what happened during their confrontation with Dziekanski.
Robinson is scheduled to appear in court on the perjury charge in April 2013.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Maria Weisgarber
