Drunk driver passed out in drive-thru
Shawn Allen Jeffrey Cleghorn, 24, had more than double the legal limit of booze in his system when found unconscious in line at McDonalds
An apparently drunken decision to grab some Mickey D’s after a night out in Fredericton has taken a Sussex-area man off the road for a year and hit him hard in the wallet.
Shawn Allen Jeffrey Cleghorn, 24, of Route 124 in Norton, pleaded guilty in Fredericton provincial court Monday to a charge of impaired driving, and the case proceeded to the sentencing phase immediately.
Crown prosecutor Kathleen Jacobs said Fredericton Police Force officers were dispatched to McDonalds on Prospect Street the night of March 11 when staff there reported a driver unconscious in his car and slumped over the wheel.
Officers found the driver - later identified as Cleghorn - in a silver Honda Civic in the drive-thru, she said, and they tried to rouse him by knocking on the vehicle windows and yelling out to him.
“The driver did not respond,” Jacobs said, noting the Civic’s window was open a bit, allowing an officer to reach in and open the car door.
“An officer had to shake the driver for several minutes until the driver woke up … He didn’t understand what he was doing in the drive-thru.”
Police detected a smell of alcohol as well as marijuana, court heard.
The prosecutor said when Cleghorn stepped out of the Civic, it started to roll backward, and the officer told him to jump back in and use the emergency brake, which he struggled with at first.
After stopping the car, Jacobs said, Cleghorn proved to be highly unsteady on his feet and fell down.
The defendant admitted he’d had too much to drink that night, the prosecutor said.
“He indicated he did not wish to speak to a lawyer,” she said.
When a breathalyzer test was administered at the police station a short time later, court heard, Cleghorn blew a reading of 190 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 80 mg.
Jacobs noted the defendant had no prior criminal record, and asked the court to impose a fine and the customary driving prohibition.
Duty counsel Doug Smith said Cleghorn would need a few months to pay the fine.
“The numbers are concerning. The circumstances are concerning,” said Judge Scott Brittain, noting the blood-alcohol reading elevated the minimum fine to be imposed.
“Hopefully, this is an aberration.”
The judge imposed a $2,000 fine, plus a $600 victim-fine surcharge. He also prohibited Cleghorn from driving for a year.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
Very lucky no one was hurt. Drinking and driving hurt's a lot of people if it went wrong. MADD