A Vernon man who doused a police officer with gasoline and threatened to light him on fire has had his appeal dismissed. 

Blake Dergez received a last year for assault with a weapon related to the gasoline-dousing incident, which took place in 2021. Dergez also received a four-month consecutive sentence for uttering threats, and one month each for four breaches of probation orders. Considering the principle of totality, the judge in the case landed on a 25-month total sentence. 

Dergez appealed the conviction and sentence. He argued the trial judge "erred in his assessment of evidence, gave insufficient reasons, and failed to impose a sentence that was consistent with the principles of totality and proportionality."

Dergez was convicted and sentenced based on an incident in September 2021, when Navigation Canada alerted the Vernon RCMP that someone was repeatedly shining a laser at airplanes flying overhead from a local park. A police officer attended the scene and found Dergez to be the person shining the laser based on evidence from witnesses. Mounties attempted to arrest Dergerz, who just before had unscrewed the cap of a jerrycan he was carrying and poured gasoline on the ground. In the course of arresting Dergez, the police officer was covered in gasoline. 

In its recent decision, the B.C. Court of Appeal noted that one of the key issues in the trial was whether Dergez deliberately or accidentally doused the police officer during the arrest. The police officer said it was deliberate and that Dergez had threatened to set him on fire during the arrest.

"(The police officer) testified that he took the threat seriously given his knowledge that Mr. Dergez was a methamphetamine-user and, as such, likely to be carrying matches," the decision states. 

Dergez testified that the gasoline dousing was inadvertent and that he did not threaten the officer. 

The trial judge accepted the police officer's evidence and found that Dergez had deliberately thrown gasoline on him and threatened to ignite him. 

In his appeal, Dergez was unsuccessful in arguing that the gasoline dousing was accidental and that the trial judge had made his conclusion based on insufficient evidence. 

"I am not persuaded by Mr. Dergez香蕉视频直播檚 submissions. I see no error in the judge香蕉视频直播檚 assessment of the evidence or his related findings of fact," Justice Gail Dickson of the Court of Appeal wrote in the decision. 

Dickson said she sees "no merit" in the argument that the trial judge provided insufficient reasons for convicting Dergez of assault with a weapon.

"It is abundantly clear from his reasons why the judge dismissed the abuse of process application and convicted Mr. Dergez of assaulting (the police officer) with gasoline. He grappled with the live issues, including the credibility and reliability of (the officer's) testimony, which he assessed based on the entire body of evidence," which, Dickson wrote, included videos and other witness testimony.

The Court of Appeal declined to dismiss both Dergez's conviction and his sentence.