A CKPG reporter charged under the Criminal Code with operating a vehicle while impaired pleaded guilty in Prince George Provincial Court on Wednesday, Feb. 25 to the lesser and included Motor Vehicle Act offence of driving without due care and attention.
Judge David Simpkin said Cheryl Tracey Jahn was “blind drunk” at the time of the incident and lucky not to have hurt anyone.
Simpkin accepted Jahn’s plea and the sentence proposed by Crown and defence lawyers. He ordered Jahn to pay a $2,000 fine and $300 victim surcharge levy within three months, spend the next year on probation and not drive with any alcohol or drugs in her system.
Court heard that around 8:30 a.m. on July 11, 2025, Jahn, 59, crashed a Ford Maverick into two parked vehicles in a lot between Fourth and Fifth avenues, forcing one of the vehicles into a nearby duplex.
Crown prosecutor Astitwa Thapa said Jahn was on her way to work that morning.
The RCMP officer who arrested Jahn failed to obtain an adequate breath sample after three tries on a roadside screening device, court heard.
Thapa told Simpkin that the subsequent two breathalyzer readings at the detachment showed Jahn's blood alcohol content to be at least 3 1/2 the legal limit. However, he conceded the Crown’s case was “hanging by a thread" because of the roadside test.
“On one hand, the readings here are absolutely terrible,” Thapa said. “But, on the other hand, I can't say with confidence that Crown would be able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she was driving while impaired, because the readings might get thrown out, because of the way the investigation was conducted.”
Simpkin was surprised to learn that Jahn had driven during her post-arrest, 90-day prohibition period. She was given an immediate roadside prohibition on Sept. 6 for driving with alcohol in her system.
Thapa said he could not comment, but police are entitled to send a file to the Crown about that incident.
Jahn’s lawyer, David Jenkins Jr., said he had not asked her about the Sept. 6 incident, but said it was what triggered her to go for treatment “and (she) hasn’t looked back since,” he said. “She lost her husband a few years ago and that has been a source of tremendous grief for her.”
Jenkins called Jahn an upstanding citizen with no criminal record. She completed a three-month residential treatment program for women, is abstinent from alcohol and “intends to keep things that way," he said.
He also provided Simpkin with letters of support for Jahn from the general manager of CKPG and the president of Unifor Local 1010.
His client also made a brief statement in court.
“I'm very sorry for my actions on that day, and subsequently, and it's been very trying,” Jahn told Simpkin. “I'm making amends.”
