A Red Deer man charged after a pickup truck crashed through backyards and into a kitchen almost a year ago had his trial adjourned on Friday.
Edward Charles Soules, 25, was set to have a trial on numerous charges but the case was delayed until Feb. 28, 2011, because of possible Charter of Rights and Freedoms issues that wouldn’t have allowed enough time on Friday afternoon.
In addition, Crown prosecutor Anders Quist withdrew a charge of failing to stop at the scene of a collision.
Four Crown witnesses are expected to testify at the trial, which is now set for all day.
Soules is charged with impaired driving, driving with a blood-alcohol content of more than .08 and obstructing a peace officer.
A half-ton pickup crashed through three backyards and into the kitchen of a home early in the morning last Aug. 14.
Around 2:25 a.m., someone driving eastbound on 39th Street towards Davison Drive jumped the curb and into the yards of three houses along Denison Crescent.
After leaving the road, the truck scraped past a huge tree, smashed through a vinyl fence and garden shed in the first yard, clipped an attached deck in the second yard and after plowing through another vinyl fence, pushed its way through another wooden deck.
It finally came to a rest inside the kitchen of a two-storey house where a woman was awake with her baby.
The road along that stretch is fairly close to residences, with just a narrow strip of green between the fences and the curb.
The pickup truck driver took off. But a suspect was nabbed a short time later by police patrolling the area.
Residents had long expressed safety concerns about the road.
Police said later that photo radar conducted in the stretch nabbed about 100 speeders during a short time.
The strip of road was a topic for discussion by Red Deer city council shortly after and the city decided to plant tall shrubs and install temporary concrete barriers along the north side of 39th Street to prevent vehicles from smashing through into backyards.
jwilson@www.reddeeradvocate.com