I don't know about you, but I was truly surprised to hear Judge Russell Collins send a young drug driver to jail on Friday. In the Napier District Court, Judge Collins heard Alexander Kerr had dope in his system when he crashed his car - killing his mate and leaving another in a wheelchair for life. Kerr had no previous convictions.
His mate, the one in the wheelchair, the one he didn't kill, had forgiven him, but Judge Collins sent Kerr to jail for two years and three months. In sentencing, Judge Collins said if people asked the question, “What would happen if I killed someone through driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol?” The answer should be “expect to go to jail.” Criminal lawyer Steve Cullen on Early Edition this morning said a sentence of imprisonment is not unusual.
If people are being killed due to drug drivers or drink drivers being on the road, then a harsh penalty has to be imposed to send the message to everybody.
Really?! Steve Cullen, I can give you many, many, many, many instances of people who have killed innocents on the road and have not been sent to jail.
A repeat drunk driver who killed another motorist has successfully appealed her prison sentence and got home detention. Samantha Allen was described as weaving on the road, SH3 in the King Country, crossing the centre line multiple times before the head on collision in March 2022. The crash killed Abigail Johns. It was Allen's fourth drink driving conviction. She successfully appealed her sentence of two years and seven months imprisonment, and it was replaced with a sentence of 9 1/2 months home detention.
Ten weeks after he hit and killed an Irish national, Declan Curley, while drunk driving, Callum Wither was again on the road and drunk. He's now been sentenced to home detention to the disappointed murmurs of Curley's friends and family. Wither, 23, who had hit Declan at the intersection of Taranaki and Dixon streets in central Wellington in 2022, was drunk enough to have a friend tell him he should not be driving. But after killing Declan on April 21, Wither was again in Wellington CBD drink driving and he got home detention.
Samuel Paterson killed surfer, builder and cyclist Andrew Milne. It was an avoidable killing, and Paterson simply had no business getting behind the wheel when he was fatigued, drunk and with cannabis in his system. Paterson's car was unwarranted and unregistered at the time of the fatal collision. The judge gave Paterson credit for his early guilty pleas, his engagement with the restorative justice, his remorse, his efforts at rehabilitation and his offer of significant reparation that reduced his sentence from a starting point of three years and six months imprisonment to 11 months home detention and 200 hours community work.
