A former B.C. Conservative candidate for North Vancouver who resigned just days into the provincial election campaign after being arrested for drunk driving has been sentenced after pleading guilty to two charges in court.
Lloyd Jeffery Sprague, 39, was handed a suspended sentence, a $1,400 fine and a mandatory one-year driving ban Nov. 12 after pleading guilty in North Vancouver provincial court to dangerous driving and impaired driving on April 18 of this year.
Sprague had only recently signed on to represent the Conservative party in the provincial election this spring when he hit a parked car at St. Davids and East Second Street while drunk, drove a few more blocks, knocking down a traffic sign in a roundabout, and eventually clipped a woman on the sidewalk outside his apartment building as he entered the parkade near West Second and Mahon Avenue at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
Police attended and took Sprague back to the detachment for a Breathalyzer sample where he blew .180 - more than twice the legal limit for blood alcohol. A blood sample taken later in hospital put his blood alcohol level at the time he drove between .192 and .223 - between two and three times the legal limit.
After the incident, Sprague immediately resigned his candidacy, said his defence lawyer Mark Slay.
Slay said Sprague is an admitted alcoholic who "clearly wasn't in a position to withstand the rigours of a campaign.
"He should not have been the candidate."
Slay said Sprague hasn't driven since the incident and has remained sober. He has also moved away from North Vancouver.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Steven Merrick said he took into account that Sprague has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder - the result of a childhood in a violent and dysfunctional family. Merrick put Sprague on two years probation with a condition not to drink alcohol.
