A Barrie man has pleaded guilty to a string of charges relating to four separate incidents of alcohol- and drug-impaired driving.
Derek Stunden will return to court on Feb. 26, where Justice Enno Meijers will receive a pre-sentence report he ordered after accepting the guilty pleas.
Until entering his guilty pleas, Stunden had no criminal record, court heard.
“He has suffered from a number of family tragedies that will be borne out in a pre-sentence report,” Stunden’s lawyer told the court.
The four incidents took place in a span of less than three years starting in May 2021, with the last one happening in February 2024. All were in Barrie or a short distance outside the city limits.
The most serious offence for which Stunden pleaded guilty was impaired driving causing bodily harm following a crash that took place on Baldwick Lane, about halfway between Barrie and Angus. Both Stunden and a passenger were injured after he drove off the road and into a forested area.
Stunden, after first being treated locally, was airlifted to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
The other three incidents involved being found asleep or incapacitated, but otherwise uninjured, in a vehicle while impaired by drugs and with drug paraphernalia.
Court heard details that Stunden was slumped behind the wheel on June 20, 2023 in a plaza parking lot on Duckworth Street with a substance in his vehicle that was later confirmed to be crack cocaine.
In another incident 13 months earlier, he was stopped in a live lane of traffic with weapons in his vehicle.
Stunden also faces a weapons charge and is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty.
