APPEAL COURT REDUCES DRUG TRAFFICKER'S PRISON TERM

The B.C. Court of Appeal has reduced a jail sentence imposed last
October on a cocaine trafficker who breached several conditions of his
conditional sentence, a form of house arrest.

Nicholas James Hawkins pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine in 2004
at Port McNeill. Earlier this year, he received a one-year conditional
sentence with nine conditions.

While serving his sentence in the community in July, Hawkins was
arrested in Courtenay by police responding to a call about an impaired
driver after a truck drove on lawns and through flower beds at night.

Police found Hawkins across the street from the truck talking on a
cellphone. An officer testified he gave a false name and appeared
intoxicated.

Hawkins, who lives in Victoria and runs a logging business on northern
Vancouver Island, testified he had a skidder to be repaired, so he was
heading north with his 18-year-old brother.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bill Ehrcke, sitting in Campbell River,
found Hawkins breached several conditions: his nightly curfew, a
cellphone ban, a requirement to keep the peace and be of good
behaviour, and another to report to his conditional-sentence supervisor.

Hawkins pleaded with the court not to send him to jail to serve the
remaining 71/2 months of his one-year conditional sentence. Ehrcke
ignored his protests, finding Hawkins was "cavalier" about his conditions.

"He should have been careful not to breach any of those conditions,"
Ehrcke said before terminating the conditional sentence.

"It must be brought home to Mr. Hawkins and to other persons serving
conditional sentences that obeying their conditions is an important
and serious matter," the judge added.

Hawkins appealed having to serve the remainder of his conditional
sentence.

The appeal court found 71/2 months in custody was disproportionate for
the crime, given the Crown's original position that three months in
custody was appropriate for the trafficking offence.

"The sentencing judge was nevertheless correct in finding that the
breaches were serious, and that it was important to treat them
seriously," Appeal Court Justice Kathryn Neilson said in written
reasons released this week.

In a unanimous ruling, the appeal court replaced the termination order
of the conditional sentence with an order that it be suspended for
four months, with Hawkins then returning to the community to serve the
remainder of his sentence under the same conditions.