A Winnipeg police officer accused of impaired driving has been acquitted after his lawyer — an ousted NDP politician now sitting independently in the legislature — raised reasonable doubt about when a sample of his blood had been taken.
Winnipeg Police Service officer Robin Joel Kipling was charged by the RCMP with impaired driving after he crashed his motorcycle on the outskirts of the city in the early morning hours of Sept. 29, 2021, while he was off duty.
Kipling pleaded not guilty and retained defence lawyer Mark Wasyliw, also the MLA for Fort Garry, to represent him at trial.
RCMP officers who arrived on scene found Kipling injured — and, the Crown alleged, impaired by alcohol. When Mounties got there, Kipling was trying to leave the scene with his wife, who had come to pick him up, provincial court Judge Keith Eyrikson said Tuesday.
A Mountie had him test on an approved screening device, which Kipling failed. The RCMP officer then planned to ask for a breath sample, but Kipling requested he be taken to hospital for his injuries.
“The general tenor of (the Mountie’s) evidence was that he wished Mr. Kipling to be promptly treated for his apparent injuries and that the criminal investigation would continue,” said Eyrikson. “He would do this by seizing blood samples from the hospital in order to see if Mr. Kipling was in fact over the legal limit while operating his motorcycle.”
Eyrikson acquitted Kipling of the charge Tuesday, after Wasyliw argued at trial that the blood sample taken from his client at hospital raised a reasonable doubt about his guilt.
The sample was seized by RCMP five days after Kipling was taken to hospital following the crash. It registered a blood alcohol reading as over the legal limit but the date and time it was taken from Kipling was not properly recorded.
“We simply don’t know evidentially when it was taken. It could have been taken at any time between Mr. Kipling’s admission (to hospital) on Sept. 29, 2021, up until shortly before the sample was seized by (the Mountie) on Oct. 4, 2021,” said Eyrikson.
“Frankly, there are simply too many potential scenarios that may arise here about what may have occurred in the intervening period of time between Sept. 29 and Oct. 4, 2021, to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the blood sample that was taken of Mr. Kipling can be tied in time, evidentially, and to the incident in question on Sept. 29. This lack of specificity as to when the blood sample was taken necessarily leaves this court with a reasonable doubt.”
Wasyliw was first elected as an NDP MLA in 2019. He was overlooked for cabinet when the NDP formed government in 2023 and was later criticized for not giving up his law practice to avoid any potential conflicts.
He was turfed from caucus Sept. 16 after the party learned that a business associate of Wasyliw was acting as the criminal defence lawyer for sex offender Peter Nygard.
“Wasyliw’s failure to demonstrate good judgment does not align with our caucus principles of mutual respect and trust,” NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes said at the time.
Wasyliw responded by calling Premier Wab Kinew “a dysfunctional and toxic leader.”
The caucus’s justification for booting Wasyliw raised outrage and drew condemnation from legal associations and organizations nationwide, with several groups demanding Kinew apologize for denigrating the role of defence lawyers in the justice system.
Kinew later apologized in the legislature to Wasyliw’s former law partner and to other defence lawyers.
erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik.
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