A case against a man accused of driving after taking drugs has been thrown out of court because a blood sample taken at a hospital four hours after a crash had no legal authority.
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Nigel Stuart Hill faced a drug-driving charge in the ACT Magistrates Court after seeking treatment in Calvary Hospital following a minor single-vehicle crash last year.
Mr Hill was driving his Holden Rodeo ute along the Barton Highway about 6.20am on July 30 when he hit a patch of black ice.
His car hit a tree in the median strip, and Mr Hill knocked his head, the court heard.
He got out and arranged for his car to be towed, with neither police nor ambulance attending the scene.
Mr Hill's lawyer, Paul Edmonds, said his client then went home and smoked a joint of marijuana.
But about four hours later Mr Hill went to Calvary Hospital for treatment. A doctor at the hospital took a sample of his blood at 10.40am, and it tested positive for cannabis.
The court heard Mr Hill had given ''no valid consent'' to the blood test, and told police he was just doing what he was told.
Mr Edmonds told the court his client allowed the blood to be taken because he thought he was obliged to. Regardless, Mr Hill was charged with a drug-driving related offence, and brought before the courts.
But special magistrate Graeme Lunney threw the case out on Tuesday, finding the test was taken too long after the crash.
Citing a 2003 ACT Supreme Court ruling by Chief Justice Terence Higgins, he found that there was not a sufficient ''nexus'' between the driving and the time the blood test was taken.
The 2003 ruling suggests it was not proper to submit a blood test two hours after the event, as the person could no longer be defined as a driver involved in an accident.
Mr Lunney said the chain of continuity between the accident and attendance at hospital was broken.
But prosecutor Anthony Williamson had argued the laws had since been amended by the Legislative Assembly in 2006, to allow hospital workers to take a blood sample up to six hours after a crash.
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is expected to appeal the decision. Mr Edmonds said the decision was the right one, and he was surprised that the DPP planned to appeal.
