A 29-year-old Langley man pled guilty to driving without due care and attention after telling police he was asleep when he drove across a front lawn and smashed his vehicle into the front of a North Vancouver house.
William Michael Dunn was handed a $1,500 fine and a three-month driving prohibition.
Dunn told officers he managed to drive into the front of the house at 4581 Underwood Ave. on a residential street in Lynn Valley, then back out again, in the early morning hours of May 5, 2013, without waking up.
A woman who was home at the time, around 7 a.m., said she heard a loud bang that sounded like a car hitting the house.
When she went to investigate, she noticed drywall was cracked in a corner of the home and bricks were knocked off the facade outside, said Crown prosecutor Lindsay Herron.
Another neighbour who saw Dunn clip the front of a vehicle parked on the street wrote down Dunn’s licence plate.
When police tracked him down, Dunn told officers he had been asleep at home when he was woken up by a phone call from a friend in the early hours of the morning, asking him for a ride.
Dunn said he was still groggy after he dropped that person off and was driving back home when he apparently fell asleep behind the wheel.
Herron said there was no alcohol in his system when Dunn was asked to blow into a breathalyzer.
Dunn’s defence lawyer told the judge his client has very little recollection of what happened.
“He was still half asleep. He was in a haze,” said the lawyer. “He doesn’t recall hitting a house.”
Dunn was also ordered to pay a $225 victim fine surcharge.
