Driving offences

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A drink-driver attracted police attention when she failed to negotiate a simple turn at the intersection of Wipere and Stout Streets and drove on to the traffic island.

Cheryl Renata, 49, administrator, pleaded guilty in Gisborne District Court to refusing to give a blood specimen and driving while disqualified.

The refusal charge represented Renata’s fourth drink-drive offence.

She was sentenced to 12 months intensive supervision and disqualified from driving for a year and a day.

Judge Warren Cathcart said the sentence was appropriate. Renata’s previous relevant convictions were dated. She was assessed as being a low risk of reoffending. The programmes available through supervision would help her.

Wayne Norman Maynard, 38, admitted drink-driving (725 micrograms) for a third or subsequent time — his fourth — and two counts of driving while disqualified, one of which was in Auckland.

He received 280 hours community work, nine months supervision and was disqualified from driving for six months.

Alcohol interlock and zero-alcohol licence provisions will apply afterward.

Judge Cathcart said were it not for Maynard’s unusual employment arrangement, which often saw him called to Auckland at short notice, the sentence would have been an electronically-monitored one of community detention.

Hemi Taiepa, 36, admitted driving while his licence was suspended and three counts of driving while disqualified — all third or subsequent offences — escaping custody, and breaching bail.

Taiepa, who has been on remand in custody for 112 days, was sentenced to time served and further disqualified from driving for 13 months.

Brian Dwain Burkhardt, 49, sickness beneficiary, who pleaded guilty to driving while his licence was suspended for a third or subsequent time, was granted an application for a community-based sentence instead of further disqualification.

Burkhardt, who is unsuitable for community work due to health reasons, received nine months supervision.

Ben James Sarsfield, 28, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified — one of which was while he was on bail for the first — breaching community work, breaching release conditions and twice breaching court bail.

He received four-and-a-half months home detention, with six months standard and special post-detention conditions, and was disqualified from driving for 12 months.

Judge Cathcart said it was only due to Sarsfield’s employment that he was willing to convert the sentence from what would otherwise have been nine months imprisonment.