Mount driver jailed

Dean Yaxley's bad driving ``shattered' a young man's dream career, cost another victim her new job and caused enormous harm to all the victims and their families. It deserved a jail term of one year, a judge said.
In Tauranga District Court yesterday, Judge Thomas Ingram told the 22-year-old Mount Maunganui butcher it was clear he was showing off before his car ploughed into Otumoetai College students Mary-Beth Wood, 15, and Richard Lance, 17, and former student Nigel Fluharty, 18, at Whangamata on May 3.
The crash occurred about 4pm when up to 50,000 people were at the annual Beach Hop.
Yaxley was not only over the drink drive limit but also the speed limit when he overtook two other vehicles, clipping the bumper of the car in front before careering into the group.
Yaxley's modified V8 Holden then fishtailed down the road, narrowly missed a woman, mounted the footpath and struck Ms Wood, Mr Lance, and Mr Fluharty who were sitting in the front yard of a house watching the passing parade.
Mr Fluharty suffered multiple injuries including a broken leg and pelvis, a punctured spleen and severed tendons in his hands, after he was thrown into a garage door.
Ms Wood's leg was badly fractured, and Mr Lance suffered a leg injury.
Yaxley had an excess breath alcohol of 602 micrograms _ the legal limit is 400 _ and had four passengers in the car.
In his victim impact statement, Mr Fluharty said he had been preparing to pursue a lifetime dream to train to become a theatrical production lighting technician in the US before Yaxley "literally came crashing into my life and shattered it".
Mr Fluharty was due to fly to the US on May 21 to take up his studies.
The public gallery in court was full yesterday as Yaxley's lawyer Tony Balme tried to plead his client's case for home detention.
Mr Fluharty and Ms Wood, who arrived on crutches, listened intently as Mr Balme spoke.
Yaxley, who pleaded guilty to one charge of driving with an excess breath alcohol and three charges of dangerous driving causing injury, had one prior conviction for sustained loss of traction, Mr Balme said.
He said his client had already paid $8000 reparation to his victims and had offered to pay another $12,000 each to Mr Fluharty and Ms Wood, and $3000 to Mr Lance.
Yaxley was prepared to pay any amount ordered by the judge at the rate of $200 a week. He also faces a civil liability claim for $6000 in damage caused to the house he hit with his car, Mr Balme said.
Judge Ingram said he was satisfied that Yaxley was a young man of good character who was full of promise but had made a bad mistake.
But he said Yaxley's decision to drink alcohol and drive at a "grossly excessive speed, showing off" to his passengers was a grave error of judgement which he must now pay the price for.
"Three innocent people have suffered enormously and a sentence of home detention would simply be an inadequate response for what you have done to them and their families," the judge said.
Judge Ingram ordered Yaxley to begin paying $27,000 compensation to his victims at $200 a week within a month of his release from prison. He also banned Yaxley from driving for three years.