Offender fined for lurking around women’s shelter

Jordan Alexander Peterson, 29, of Moncton, also refused police demand for urine sample to determine if he was driving while impaired by drugs

A Moncton man arrested by Fredericton police for suspected impaired driving and for showing up at a women’s shelter when he wasn’t wanted was fined Monday and released from custody.

Jordan Alexander Peterson, 29, of Gordon Street in Moncton, appeared in Fredericton provincial court Monday by video-conference from a remand facility, scheduled to go through a bail hearing.

However, duty counsel Gerald Pugh said Peterson was waiving his right to his bail hearing and instead wanted to plead guilty.

The defendant admitted to a Jan. 2 count of refusing a demand to provide a sample to determine if he’d been driving while impaired by alcohol or a drug, and two citations under the provincial Trespass Act.

Grace House on Brunswick Street. (Photo: Facebook)

Peterson also pleaded guilty Monday to a count of failing to attend court earlier this month.

Crown prosecutor Gwynne Hearn said a city police officer was on patrol in downtown Fredericton at about 11:15 p.m. on Jan. 2 when they came upon a vehicle travelling the wrong way through the roundabout at St. Anne’s Point Drive.

The officer recognized the vehicle and the driver, she said, as they’d dealt with Peterson before, and knowing he was a suspended driver, pulled him over.

Peterson proceeded along St. Anne’s Point Drive onto the ramp onto the Westmorland Street Bridge at slow pace, court heard, and it was there he was stopped.

The defendant exhibited signs he was impaired, such as glossy eyes and clumsy handling of his driving documentation, Hearn said, so he was detained on suspicion of driving while under the influence of some kind of drug.

At the city police station, the prosecutor said, an officer made a demand for a urine sample for a drug test, but Peterson refused to provide one.

Peterson came to the attention of the Fredericton police again in the weeks following that incident, court heard, at Grace House, a women’s shelter on Brunswick Street operated by Fredericton Homeless Shelters Inc. 

A staff member at the shelter called police in the early-morning hours of Jan. 23 because a man - later identified as Peterson - was near the main door, Hearn said.

Police removed him from that location, she said, but he was back the night of Feb. 5, hurling snowballs at the building.

Court heard Peterson was supposed to appear in Fredericton provincial court earlier this month to answer to those previous charges but was a no-show.

The prosecutor recommended fines for the refusal offence and the two trespassing infractions, plus a five-day jail term for the failure to attend court, which amounted to a sentence of time served as Peterson had been in custody since his arrest on a warrant last week.

The defence agreed with those recommendations, Pugh said.

Judge Mary Jane Richards imposed the requested jail term, plus a $2,600 fine for the refusal and $292.50 for each trespass - for a total of $3,185.

You can contact Don MacPherson at ftonindependent@gmail.com.