POLICE WON’T IDENTIFY WOMAN CHARGED WITH HAVING 5 TIMES THE LIMIT OF ALCOHOL WHEN SHE CRASHED VEHICLE LAST NIGHT IN GRAVENHURST

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Police can’t — or won’t — release the name of a woman who crashed her vehicle here last night while “having five times the legal limit in her of alcohol in her blood.”

They say it’s because they chose to identify the amount of her breathalyser test rather than report her name only.

The woman’s name will become public when she appears in court next month.

Const. Sam Bigley says: “Unfortunately we cannot release the name of the accused when we release the readings as it is evidentiary in nature.”

Police routinely release the names of others charged with similar alcohol-related incidents.

Speaking this afternoon, Bracebridge OPP detachment commander Insp. Jason Nickle, tells MuskokaTODAY.com “I can’t release that.”

He said because police opted to release an amount of alcohol the woman is accused of having, they can’t — or won’t — release her name.

“We can put either the name or the amount she blew, but not both. We’re not allowed to put both. We can release the name or how high she blew, but we can’t release both.”

Nickle said “I would have to release you back to (Bigley) and she can talk to her people in the media department and they can make a decision if they want to release it.

“But now that we’ve released the value that she has blown. Then my understanding of the regulations is I can’t give a name out.”

He said the “fairness comes with us not putting a name with the number.”

He added if police have already released the number “and you issue a press release that gives the same information without a number, people can put two-and-two together and come up to a name and a number, which is not fair for her in court.”

Nickle said: “I won’t release it. But if Sam makes the decision that it’s releasable, then by all means she can give you that information.”

Bigley later responded in a third email: “We routinely release the name of the accused, but never along with the evidence relating to their breath results. It is one or the other.”

She said in her original release early this afternoon that officers, along with Muskoka EMS, responded to a report a single motor vehicle collision Wednesday, Dec. 21, shortly after 8:30 p.m. on Brydon’s Bay Road in Gravenhurst.

Officers arrived quickly and after an investigation into the cause of the collision, arrested and charged a 41-year-old Gravenhurst woman with having five times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood.

The un-named woman was charged with Impaired Operation of a Vehicle CC 320.14(1)(a) and is to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice Jan. 10 to answer to her charge.

She was treated at the scene for her minor injuries.

As in all cases where impaired driving charges are laid, the accused’s drivers’ licence is suspended for 90 days and their vehicle is impounded.

A Gravenhurst woman, 41, was charged by police last night with having more than five times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood when she crashed her vehicle on Brydon’s Bay Road in Gravenhurst.

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