Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer

A Penticton woman has been found guilty for driving while intoxicated and driving while prohibited, despite her lawyer's defence of necessity due to peril.

That peril allegedly came from a drunk and potentially violent boyfriend, with whom she had gotten into an argument on the evening of Jul. 31, 2015.

According to the woman's account, she arrived at her boyfriend's place at around 9 p.m., where she found him to be drunk and verbally abusive. While she said she had been in an abusive relationship before, this was a side she told the court she hadn't seen, and described him as "wasted" and "outrageous".

After an altercation, she left to stay with a friend on the advice of a police officer called to the scene. She left without her backpack and laptop, which her boyfriend had on the porch. However, after her friend fell asleep, she returned to her boyfriend's place to retrieve her things, and entered his apartment.

He then returned while she was inside, "more drunk than before." He was angry and allegedly pushed her against the wall. She managed to get free and ran to her car parked outside the apartment, with the intention of leaving her laptop in the car and not driving away.

While putting the laptop inside the vehicle, her boyfriend threw part of a bed frame at the vehicle, causing a dent, at which point she decided to drive away. She told the court she was afraid she would be assaulted if she stayed at the scene, yelled for help or tried to run.

She believed the violent behaviour, which she testified that she hadn't seen from her boyfriend before, may have been due to the combination of alcohol and his use of steroids.

In making a judgement, Judge Gregory Koturbash sought to answer three questions: whether she was in imminent peril, whether there was a legal alternative available, and whether the harm caused by her driving was disproportionate to the harm she sought to avoid.

On the first question, Koturbash found she mustn't have been in fear of imminent peril if she returned to the apartment after the first interaction, and because the officer described her as "chatty, engaging, and never once mentioning anything about being assaulted or fleeing from her boyfriend."

He also found that she had other alternatives, noting that she had driven several blocks and had expressed intent to drive several more blocks to get home, when pulled over. Koturbash adds that she never mentioned the assault to the second officer either.

Koturbash found no reason to weigh at length the gravity of driving while intoxicated and the harm she sought to flee.