He was however granted leave to apply for home detention if he found a suitable address.
It was the evening of December 24 last year. Murphy had arrived ashore after a trip to sea and was enjoying a drink at the West Coast town’s local, the Hotel Reefton when he got into a quarrel with another patron.
After the altercation, Murphy drove down The Strand and onto Kelly St where he failed to give way at the intersection and narrowly missed a vehicle travelling west on Broadway.
Broadway is Reefton’s main street and has a high traffic and pedestrian flow, the police summary of facts said.
Murphy continued to drive in an “erratic manner” west on Broadway and right past the Reefton police station.
He approached an intersection at speed, he veered left without giving way. The tyres of his vehicle clipped the inside kerb, which caused the back of the car to become airborne.
Police said it was sheer luck no other vehicle was in the way at the time.
As he went around a moderate right-hand corner his ute lost traction and skidded off the road through a fence into a paddock.
The police found Murphy after he’d got out of the ute and was walking towards Ikamatua.
An evidential breath test turned up an alcohol reading of 515 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath after he’d drunk “seven or eight” beers at the hotel.
Judge Richard Russell noted Murphy’s list of previous convictions now ran over three pages and included him driving while under the influence of drugs, driving with sustained loss of traction and driving while drunk.
Judge Russell said in sentencing him that his latest driving conduct, on top of his history, was “simply dreadful”.
“It was something of a miracle that no one was seriously injured or killed.”
While Murphy’s alcohol level was moderate, his driving was “one of the more serious pieces of bad driving I’ve seen before me for some time”, Judge Russell said.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. The West Coast community where you live doesn’t have to put up with people driving the way you did.”
From a starting point of 10 months in prison, Murphy was given credit for his guilty pleas and sentenced to seven months, and an interlock order.
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.
