Freeman Lee Ruhe was high on magic mushrooms when he crashed vehicle with child on his lap

Freeman Ruhe, 27, admitted crashing a vehicle after taking magic mushrooms. Photo / 123RF

High on magic mushrooms and with a young child on his lap, a young man drove across a suburban road before crashing into a neighbour’s garage, which then collapsed on his vehicle.

Freeman Lee Ruhe was later assessed at the Hamilton Central police station by a medical practitioner, who deemed him “incapable of proper control of a vehicle”.

The 28-year-old admitted to police he’d earlier taken magic mushrooms.

Now Ruhe has appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on charges relating to that incident, along with using a person’s bank card, which was stolen in a burglary, to buy several packets of cigarettes, petrol, a lighter, and Zigzag papers.

Ruhe accepted he was going to be jailed by Judge Louis Bidois, but it was just a matter of how long.

‘Mushrooms, a crash, and using stolen property’

It was about 10.15pm on June 28 last year when Ruhe was sitting in his Mitsubishi with a 4-year-old child on his lap.

He drove forward out of a driveway on Peachgrove Rd, a usually busy through road in Hamilton with a 50km/h limit.

He then drove across the road into an adjacent driveway and crashed into the garage, causing it to collapse on top of his car.

Ruhe was taken back to the police station, where he was drug tested.

Neither Ruhe nor the child was injured.

Two weeks earlier, a car was broken into outside a Huntington home, and a separate house, in the same suburb, was burgled.

Early the next day, Ruhe was driving a stolen Holden when he stopped at the BP Horsham Downs and used a stolen bank card to get petrol, cigarettes, and tobacco supplies.

He then drove to Z Five Cross Roads and bought $70 worth of cigarettes before being stopped by police on Palmerston St at 7.50am the same morning.

Ruhe was found with a backpack containing items belonging to the victims in the car break-in and house burglary.

‘Poor decision-making’

Judge Bidois said the child was vulnerable and defenceless but he accepted that Ruhe was remorseful about what happened.

“You drove a short distance, crashed, and had a 4-year-old on your lap, which potentially put him at [risk of] serious harm, and into a collapsing garage.

“Of course, if you had driven on the road, there could easily have been an accident.”

Judge Bidois said the offending involved “poor decision-making” and a pre-sentence report recommended imprisonment.

He accepted Ruhe had grown up in poverty, witnessing violence and the use of drugs from a young age.

Judge Bidois took a total start point of 13 months, before taking off four months as credit for his pleas and upbringing, before jailing Ruhe for nine months for unlawfully using a motor vehicle, receiving, obtains by deception, dangerous driving, driving under the influence of a drug and ill-treatment of a child.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.