Impaired Operation of Vehicle: Acquittal & Analysis

Impaired operation of vehicle - acquittal and analysis

In R. v. Roberts, 2026 ONCJ 524, MR was charged with impaired operation contrary to s. 320.14(1)(a) of the Criminal Code and failure/refusal to comply with an approved-instrument breath demand contrary to s. 320.15(1). The central issue was whether the arresting officer had reasonable grounds to believe Roberts’s ability to drive was impaired by alcohol, thereby lawfully authorizing both his arrest and the subsequent breath demand. 

The officer relied on several alleged signs of impairment: Roberts had driven unusually slowly after leaving the vicinity of a bar, allegedly appeared unsteady, smelled of alcohol, had glossy eyes and slurred speech, and admitted consuming alcohol. However, dash-camera, body-worn-camera and breath-room recordings materially contradicted several of those observations. Roberts drove only approximately 25 metres to an adjacent gas station; video did not show meaningful unsteadiness; and the officer’s evidence concerning Roberts’s turn signal was inconsistent with the recording. 

Of particular significance, Justice Gee found that Roberts’s supposed “slurred speech” was not apparent on the body-camera footage. Rather, Roberts spoke with an identifiable accent and a slow, deliberate cadence. The court cautioned that an accent must not be conflated with slurred speech, as doing so risks exposing people with regional, cultural, or foreign accents to greater police scrutiny or arrest based on ordinary characteristics of speech rather than genuine evidence of impairment. 

Although the court did not find that the officers deliberately misled the court and was prepared to assume that they subjectively believed Roberts was impaired, the Crown failed to establish the objective component of reasonable grounds. Evidence that Roberts had consumed alcohol—including his admission and the smell of alcohol—could support suspicion, but did not objectively establish reasonable grounds to believe his ability to drive was impaired. Justice Gee observed that the circumstances may have justified a roadside screening-device demand, but the officer instead proceeded directly to an impaired-driving arrest and approved-instrument demand. 

Accordingly, the arrest and approved-instrument demand were unlawful. Because Roberts had no legal obligation to comply with an unlawful demand, the refusal charge failed. The same evidentiary deficiencies left the court with reasonable doubt that Roberts’s driving ability was actually impaired. He was therefore acquitted on both charges. 

Analysis

The decision is notable for three reasons. First, it reinforces the distinction between suspicion of alcohol consumption and reasonable grounds to believe impairment. Drinking, an odour of alcohol, and somewhat unusual behaviour may justify further investigation, but they do not automatically justify an arrest and approved-instrument demand. The reasonable-grounds standard is relatively modest, but, as Justice Gee emphasized, it remains a meaningful threshold that cannot be diluted. 

Second, Roberts illustrates the increasingly important role of objective video evidence in testing police recollection and interpretation. The court did not simply prefer video because it existed; rather, repeated inconsistencies between the officer’s description and what the recordings actually showed cumulatively undermined the objective foundation for his grounds. Importantly, the judgment distinguishes an officer’s honest subjective belief from whether that belief was objectively reasonable. 

Third, the discussion of accent versus slurred speech gives the case broader significance. The judgment expressly recognizes the danger that ordinary linguistic characteristics may be misinterpreted as symptoms of intoxication. It therefore provides a useful caution for impaired-driving investigations—and potentially other reasonable-grounds assessments—that police observations must be evaluated against objective evidence and must not rest on assumptions about how an unimpaired person “should” sound. 

There is also an important nuance in the result: the acquittal on refusal arose from the unlawfulness of the demand, not from a finding that Roberts genuinely tried but was unable to provide a sample. Justice Gee expressly found that, had the demand been lawful, the breath-room evidence would have established beyond a reasonable doubt that Roberts deliberately feigned attempts to blow and intentionally refused to comply. Thus, the case ultimately turned on the absence of lawful grounds for the demand rather than the accused’s conduct afterward. 

Conclusion:

Impaired cases increasingly are difficult to challenge, but this particular case gives us a good blueprint on the type of defense that we can mount when a client is charged with impaired.

At Shankar Law, we pride ourselves on researching and constantly reading up on the law and on the latest cases. We will use our research skills to guide and advise clients, obtaining the best possible result for you in Ontario. We look forward to serving you at our physical offices in Southwest Ontario or anywhere in Ontario.