CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - A B.C. man who said he wasn’t impaired while driving and only drank after parking a rental car at the Charlottetown Airport was sentenced Wednesday to five days in jail.
Paul George Gillis, 64, appeared before Chief Judge Nancy Orr in provincial court in Charlottetown for her decision after a trial that lasted more than a day.
As he reviewed the evidence, Orr said she didn’t accept Gillis’s version of what happened.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said.
During the trial, the court heard from several witnesses, including an Air Canada employee who contacted her supervisor about how intoxicated Gillis was when he checked in.
A waitress at a restaurant in the airport also testified Gillis was intoxicated when he was there.
“Her words were he was drunk,” Orr said.
Those encounters happened before Gillis moved a rental vehicle he had parked in front of the airport.
Gillis testified he moved the vehicle and while he was cleaning it out he found a bottle that had vodka mixed with Sprite in it.
He said he drank it.
Orr said she didn’t accept the evidence he was sober when he arrived at the airport and only became intoxicated after drinking the Sprite bottle’s contents.
Gillis provided breathalyzer samples that were about twice the legal limit.
After reviewing the evidence, Orr found Gillis guilty of impaired driving and failing the breathalyzer, although the Crown stayed the impaired driving charge.
Orr sentenced Gillis to five days in jail and fined him $1,200 along with a $360 victim surcharge.
He is banned from driving for one year.
