Yesterday she was sentenced on all matters to nine months’ supervision, 80 hours’ community work, disqualified from driving for another 12 months and an order was made for the confiscation of the vehicle she told her lawyer had “gone to the wreckers”.
Police said records showed she was still the vehicle’s registered owner.
Ker, who was on a restricted licence, was disqualified from driving for a year in August 2022 after she was convicted of aggravated failing to stop for police.
Around 8pm on July 3 last year she drove off at speed from a fast-food outlet in Richmond when she saw the police had done a U-turn after they had spotted her waiting in the drive-through lane.
Ker “immediately accelerated heavily” and started overtaking vehicles by driving along the central median strip towards oncoming traffic in lower Richmond.
The police followed and activated their lights and siren but Ker continued at speed, overtaking vehicles and on the wrong side of the road for a short time trying to avoid being caught.
As she approached a busy intersection she briefly switched off her driving lights and then braked hard in a failed attempt to have the following police car smash into the back of her car.
Ker then carried on and the police abandoned the pursuit. Once she was found and arrested Ker told the police someone had been “test driving her vehicle”.
Three months later Ker again caught the attention of the police.
On the afternoon of October 4, she was the front passenger in a white Subaru driven by her boyfriend, with no registration plates, being driven on the Moutere Highway towards Motueka.
They passed a police patrol unit parked on the roadside then sped up once they knew they had been seen.
The officer activated the patrol vehicle’s lights and siren but the Subaru driver accelerated and crossed into the wrong lane on a right-hand bend at which point the police abandoned the pursuit.
The Subaru continued at speed towards Motueka, where it was seen by police being driven erratically in a 50km/h residential area.
The driver tried to avoid the police with “dangerous manoeuvres” and, again, the police did not engage or try to stop the vehicle.
At one stage Ker threw a large water bottle at an approaching police vehicle, hitting it, as the two vehicles passed.
The chase carried on through Motueka, stopping only when it ran out of fuel. Ker told the police when asked about why she threw the bottle that she “just felt like it”.
Ker’s lawyer Josh Friend said substance abuse, along with the influence of her partner had been influential factors in the offending.
Friend said Ker’s offending last July was driven by an ultimatum from him that if she were to pull over for the police he would say that the methamphetamine he had in the car was hers.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Daryl Fenemor said it seemed that she was blaming a lot on others when her actions had amounted to “very dangerous behaviour” that had put the public at risk.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
