Brandon Seguin, 29, was sentenced Friday to 30 months in jail for seven charges relating to a 2021 incident in which he had tried to flee police and smashed his vehicle into at least one police car in the process.
When Seguin was eventually arrested, police found fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as roughly $10,000 in cash and several weapons, according to the judge's reasons for the sentence.
The events in question, as described by the judge, occurred on June 11, 2021 when police were conducting unrelated surveillance and ran Seguin's licence plate. The licence plate on the vehicle was not the one that should have been on it, so police followed him.
They ended up following Seguin to a remote location in Mill Bay and decided to flip on the emergency lights and conduct a traffic stop.
Seguin then drove at the police, damaging one of the cop cars before speeding off. Police did not pursue him at that time, but were able to track him down a short time after — though it is not clear how long it took.
When police searched his car, they found the drugs, money and weapons.
Seguin pleaded guilty to the charges, and with time served will need to spend an additional 518 days in jail.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Saunders noted both his issues with drug addiction, difficult upbringing and Indigenous background as mitigating factors in sentencing, but also took into account Seguin's "staggering record" of previous convictions. Seguin is already in custody due to some of those previous charges.
Saunders also questioned some of the evidence provided from police that asserts Seguin was involved in higher level drug trafficking, and found that it was more probable he was simply addicted to drugs and selling small amounts to keep up his own habit.
The justice also said the way Seguin tried to escape police was likely a result of him "panicking," which could have been exacerbated by his drug use.
Due to all these factors, Saunders' sentence was much closer to that sought by the defence, which was 18 months, rather than what the Crown sought, which was five years in jail. Saunders did tack on three year probation for Seguin after he is released.
