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Man's bathroom defense doesn't wash with judge (http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0317washroom17-ON.html)

Canadian Press
Mar. 17, 2005 02:40 PM

CALGARY - A man who blamed the call of nature for being in the wrong place at the wrong time didn't provide a very clean-smelling defense as far as a judge is concerned.

Provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk ruled the 48-year-old man's argument of "when you gotta go, you gotta go" didn't wash, and found him guilty of break and enter and mischief.

"The defence argument does not flush with the rest of the evidence," the judge said in convicting Terrance Leroy Wright.

Wright claimed he broke into a closed second-floor H & R Block tax office Sept. 26 because he desperately needed to use the bathroom. After failed attempts to gain entry into an office and women's bathroom with a screwdriver, he urinated and defecated on the floor in the lobby leading to a parkade.

An employee working in the building heard the attempted break-in and called police, who nabbed the culprit.

Semenuk pointed out there was a restaurant, fast-food outlet and four gas stations within a block - all with washrooms.

"If his discomfort was really a matter of urgency, he had many other lawful alternatives open to him in close proximity before he decided to go upstairs to the second-storey offices," the judge said.

Wright was sentenced to one day in jail after being given credit for pre-trial custody.