Axe, missing windshield lead to drunk driving arrest

A bizarre set of circumstances has netted a Nova Scotia man a conviction for drunk driving.

RCMP were called to a section of Highway 103 outside of Bridgewater on Dec. 3, 2019 for a motor vehicle complaint. Responding officers found a parked car straddling the white line.

The car was missing its front windshield. There was a hole in the back window, glass on the highway and an axe on the backseat.

At first, police said it appeared the car was empty, but then a man leaned forward in the driver's seat. He was later identified as Trent William Lewis.

Caught with pants down

According to a court decision issued earlier this week, Lewis asked police why he had been pulled over. It was then, Judge Paul Scovil writes, that the officer noticed Lewis had his pants pulled down to his knees.

"I believe I can take judicial notice that this is an unusual way to wear one's pants when operating a motor vehicle," Judge Scovil wrote.

The officer ordered Lewis out of the car and told him to pull up his pants. It was then Lewis took off running.

"He did not get far before being tackled by the police officer," Scovil wrote.

"Given Mr. Lewis's condition the officer could have given him a 100-metre head start and he still would not have evaded capture."

'Freaking out'

At Lewis's trial, a woman testified that she drove Lewis and another man from Liverpool towardBridgewater when, she told the court, Lewis started "freaking out."

She said Lewis kicked out the windshield, at which point she and the other man fled. She told court that when they left, there was no axe and no hole in the rear window.

"Where the axe came from remains a mystery as deep as the money pit on Oak Island," Scovil wrote.

Lewis himself remembers little of the events leading up to his arrest, other than that they involved a quart of rum, cocaine and a four-day house party.

In addition to his conviction for drunk driving, Lewis was also convicted of fleeing police.