Judge says speeder won’t lose bike for breaking 200 km/h on Vancouver Island

VICTORIA – A man who was clocked going more than three times the speed limit will get to keep his luxury motorcycle.

The director of civil forfeiture took Jason Alan Dery to court in an attempt to seize the 40-year-old’s Ducati motorcycle for the speeding violation.

A court document says Dery exceeded a speed of 200 kilometres an hour on July 2, 2011 while on a road near Victoria, B.C.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gregory Bowden says while he doesn’t condone Dery’s behaviour, the government didn’t prove the motorcycle was an “instrument of unlawful activity.”

He says the act of speeding was not enough to result in forfeiture, and the government didn’t prove the motorbike’s operation was likely to cause serious bodily harm to a person.

Bowden’s ruling says Dery, who has committed 39 motor-vehicle offences since 1990, has been deterred from similar behaviour in the future because of the penalties he’s accumulated.