Detention for crash driver

SMASHED: A police officer examines the remains of a car that crashed at high speed on State Highway 10 last year, leaving two female passengers with serious injuries. PHOTO/PETER DE GRAAF

A Kerikeri man has been sentenced to eight months' home detention for a high-speed crash that left his teenage passengers with serious injuries including broken legs and a broken back.

James Dobbie Inverarity, 21, was sentenced in the Kaikohe District Court on October 28, 13 months after a crash on State Highway 10 about 2km north of the Kerikeri roundabout.

The court heard that on September 28 last year the driver of a car crashed after he is thought to have suffered a heart attack. Several motorists had stopped and tried to help but he died.

Inverarity had arrived at the scene driving a modified car at a minimum speed, according to an expert report, of 157-168km/h. With him in the car were two teenage girls.

When Inverarity crested a small hill he had seen the scene ahead and braked, but was travelling too fast to stop. He had slammed into the rear of a stationary vehicle the occupants of which had just got out to help at the initial crash.

Inverarity had suffered moderate injuries but his passengers, aged 17 and 18 at the time, had to be cut from the wreckage. They were flown to Whangarei Hospital with serious injuries.

The sentencing was delayed because Inverarity, through his lawyer Doug Blaikie, had disputed aspects of the police summary of facts. One of those was whether it was possible to exactly determine his speed before the crash, the other whether one of his passengers had suffered a broken back.

On the question of the broken back, Judge Keith de Ridder said the term described a range of injuries. While there was no suggestion the victim would be permanently incapacitated by her injury, it was nonetheless "very significant" and involved compressed and cracked vertebrae.

Both victims had suffered a broken leg, one requiring a rod to be inserted to help it heal.

Judge de Ridder said both appeared to have made a full recovery in terms of day-to-day functioning but had suffered a lot of pain and spent a long time in hospital. They would live with the effects for a long time.

An aggravating feature was Inverarity had refused a request by one of his passengers to slow down. Members of the public had tried to warn him of the initial crash but he was travelling so fast he did not see them. His "extremely dangerous" speed, although over a relatively short period, was another aggravating feature. Speed was the only reason he failed to stop in time.

Taking into account Inverarity's remorse and acceptance of responsibility, Judge de Ridder sentenced him to eight months' home detention and disqualified from driving for two years. He was ordered to pay emotional harm reparation of $650 to one victim and $850 to the other.