Hastings mum caught drink-driving with children in car ordered to stay home

Beverly Hale (pictured) has been disqualified from driving. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

A Hastings mum caught drink-driving with two young children in the car has been ordered to stay at home for the weekends as part of a community detention sentence imposed by a judge in court today.

Beverley Ann Hale, 40, had two unrestrained children in her car, aged 5 and 2, with one of them reported to have been standing-up a short while before the car ran-over a traffic island during a hurried U-turn. The car also clipped a parked car outside Hastings Central School on the morning of May 6 this year.

At one stage, Judge Bridget Mackintosh said in Hastings District Court yesterday, the mum drove into Murdoch Rd at such a speed she veered across the centre line, forcing other traffic to stop to avoid colliding.

Police, called by a concerned motorist who had become alarmed by the erratic driving and the lack of restraints for the children, stopped her outside the school and took her the Hastings Police Station for drink-drive processing.

In August she pleaded guilty to one charge of refusing to supply a blood sample, one of dangerous driving and two of ill-treating children in failing to ensure their safety in the vehicle.

When she appeared briefly for sentence yesterday, Judge Mackintosh said Hale had clearly been having problems in her life, but the incidents four months ago "brought a whole lot of things to a head."

As a result, agencies became involved and a variety of "support" measures were being adopted to help the woman and her family.

Police had been told the woman knew she shouldn't have been driving, but did so because she wanted to get the child to school on time.

Eric Forster, standing-in for defence counsel Roger Philip, described it as a "super nova" event, as he could find just one previous drink-driving offence in the woman's history.

Judge Mackintosh said Hale had been convicted of drink-driving in 1994, but alcohol was likely to have been involved in some other offences.

Hale was sentenced to four months' community detention, including a curfew at her Flaxmere home from Friday evenings to Monday mornings. She was also placed under intensive supervision for a year, and disqualified from driving for 14 months.