CREDIBILITY - OFFICER TESTIMONY

The sole issue at Mr. Dexter's trial was who was driving the car when it crashed into the woods, injuring some of the occupants.  The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld Mr. Dexter's convictions for impaired causing, dangerous driving causing and flight from police causing bodily harm, and pointed out the main investigating officer's testimony in doing so:

The core of the defence argument at trial was that the inconsistencies in the evidence of the three witnesses as to who drank what and when, and their state of intoxication, made them inherently unreliable witnesses on the issue of who was driving at the key time.  The trial judge responded to this argument by saying, “Officer Bates was a reliable witness whose evidence I accept.  He was on duty as a police officer and he was not consuming alcohol.” . . . The fact that Officer Bates’s evidence confirmed the evidence of the three witnesses showed that, contrary to the defence submission, they were not so intoxicated that their evidence as to what happened at the material time was unreliable. He was entitled to use Officer Bates’s evidence as he did. R. v. Dexter, 2013 ONCA 744