A woman who claimed an abusive partner framed her into taking the fall for a fatal East Auckland crash has been sentenced to prison after a judge and jury flatly rejected her tale.
Pakuranga Heights resident Kim Margaret Scott, 49, had more than three times the high-risk limit for cannabis in her system when she was found in the driver’s seat of the vehicle that killed 77-year-old Leslie “Les” Motion in June 2023.
“This is an accident waiting to happen,” a witness at her trial recalled saying to his wife as the defendant’s vehicle zipped past him that day, weaving between cars and travelling at well over the speed limit moments before the crash.
The witness, unfortunately, was absolutely right in his snap assessment of the situation, Judge David McNaughton said last week as Scott appeared in Manukau District Court for sentencing.
Scott remained defiant that she had not been driving the vehicle that day. Her partner, she claimed, put her in the driver’s seat while she was unconscious and ran off before authorities arrived.
“Clearly, by their verdict, the jury rejected that defence and, in my judgment, they were right to do so,” the judge said. “The evidence was really overwhelming.”
He sentenced Scott to two years and seven months’ imprisonment.
Motion, described by prosecutors as a pillar of his community, had been turning at the intersection of Pakuranga and Stanniland roads when Scott’s vehicle slammed into the passenger side of his car.
Her estimated speed just before impact was between 95 and 99km/h.
Had she been heeding the 50km/h speed limit, the judge noted, “you would have been 30 metres away from the point of impact and he would have had time to complete that manoeuvre”.
Despite the best efforts of paramedics, Motion died in the ambulance while en route to hospital. He had suffered significant abdominal injuries.
Scott, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was also taken to hospital with serious injuries to her spine, ribs, sternum, head and wrist, and a perforated bowel.
Motion had been married for 53 years and had recently taken on the role of fulltime caregiver for his wife. Since his death, the court was told, his family had had to sell the couple’s home to pay for a care facility.
“She says his sudden death has changed every aspect of her life,” Judge McNaughton said of Motion’s wife, referring to a series of victim impact statements that were submitted to the court but not read aloud because of time constraints.
“The loss of her life’s companion has been devastating.”
His daughter, meanwhile, described how she has uprooted her life in Dunedin to live closer to her mother after her father’s death.
Motion was described as a gregarious person known for bringing community members together. He was a deacon at his church, served as a justice of the peace for 28 years and served on the neighbourhood watch.
The victim impact statements make it clear that Motion’s death had a profound impact on those around him, said Crown prosecutor Kristy Li.
Scott’s continued denial of responsibility, she said, “has prolonged and exacerbated that pain”.
Despite that, there was also an element of what the judge referred to as a “quiet and dignified” grace in the statements to the court.
“I hope this is something you can learn from,” the victim’s sister said, echoing similar sentiments from his widow.
Defence lawyer Asta Gold thanked the victim’s family on behalf of her client for their kindhearted approach to the process. She accepted Scott had been driving aggressively that day but disputed the Crown’s contention that the aggressive driving had been prolonged.
Evidence, including CCTV, could show definitively that she had been driving aggressively for only about 800 metres, she said.
Scott, who spent 12 days in hospital, still suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as headaches and confusion at times from her head injury, Gold said.
She asked for home detention, pointing to the hardship imprisonment would cause for Scott’s daughter, while prosecutors argued that prison was both justified and inevitable.
The judge set a starting point of four years’ imprisonment, pointing out that Scott’s driving “was not a momentary burst of acceleration” but instead the result of her weaving between cars, in and out of the bus lane, at high speed and “compounded by very high levels of THC”.
He allowed a 15% discount for the impact on her daughter but no discount for remorse, acknowledging her recent letter of apology but describing it as “too little too late”.
“You made a decision to fight this charge and you are going to have to live with the consequences,” he added, noting that she continued to pick up driving infractions even after the crash.
“The time to show remorse was long ago.”
He also allowed discounts of 10% each for the injuries she suffered in the crash and for her allegation that her partner had been “abusive and violent to an extreme degree”.
She had taken him in when he was 15 years old and had nowhere else to go, but as the years passed, he became the dominant one in the relationship, she said. The judge described the relationship as inappropriate and unlawful, given his age at the time it began.
He added that he was “somewhat sceptical” of the abuse claims, given the ex-partner had not been given a chance to respond. However, for the sake of expediency, he agreed to “take what you say at face value” rather than adjourn the sentencing for a disputed facts hearing.
The combined reductions brought the sentence down to two years and seven months. Only if a sentence is below two years can a judge consider a non-custodial alternative.
“Mr Motion, from everything I read, was a good person,” the judge said. “He had a full life and a good life.
“His contribution to his family and his community was massive.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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