PRESUMPTION OF BAC - "BOLUS DRINKING" EXAMINED

There was an acquittal at trial when the court concluded that the Crown had failed to prove the expert's assumption of no bolus drinking beyond a reasonable doubt.  Mr. Saul's blood samples were taken more than two hours after the time of the single vehicle roll-over, which killed his passenger.  Therefore an expert had to be called to extrapolate the blood sample results, and that expert's opinion was based on an assumption that Mr. Saul had not consumed "alcohol within 30 minutes of the accident." The court defined "bolus drinking" as the consumption of a large amount of alcohol within 30 minutes of the alleged driving offence.  The Crown successfully appealed the acquittal and a new trial was ordered:

[The Supreme] Court stated that in the absence of any evidence on the issue, a court is entitled to apply a common sense inference that most individuals do not bolus drink. In this case, the trial judge's finding of a reasonable possibility the responded engaged in bolus drinking was based solely on conjecture or speculation. R. v. Saul, 2015 BCCA 149