Waikato man Sukhdev Singh, also known as Sukhdev Bassi, has been jailed again, after being caught drink-driving for the 13th time.
A judge has urged a man to “get some help” and stop drinking after clocking up his 13th drink-driving conviction.
Sukhdev Singh, known as Sukhdev Bassi, also racked up his eighth driving while disqualified conviction after the incident in Cambridge earlier this year.
“You need to get some help because you can’t keep coming to court like this,” Judge Swaran Singh told the 57-year-old in the Hamilton District Court last week.
“Stop drinking.
“You have far too many convictions for drinking and driving,” the judge told Singh over the audiovisual link from prison.
“No, I know that,” the defendant said.
Singh was drunk when he drove around to a woman’s property - who has a protection order against him - on the evening of February 4.
He got out and walked to her front door. The victim locked the door and ran to her bedroom in fear. As she called the police, Singh knocked continuously on the door.
Police arrived. A blood sample returned a level of 247mg, nearly five times the legal limit of 50mg.
When questioned, Singh said he went to the woman’s house “because he wanted to talk to her”.
Singh was issued an alcohol interlock in September 2022 and disqualified from driving for one year and four months in September 2024.
He wasn’t meant to be driving until January next year.
Judge Singh noted Singh had lost his 15-year-old son in a quad bike crash a number of years ago, while several other family members had also died.
His counsel, Grace Aislabie, said her client was remorseful for driving drunk again, and had written a letter to the court.
He’d also completed a two-day business programme; however, as he was on remand, there were not many programmes he could get involved in until he was sentenced.
But the judge accepted that it was at least a small step towards rehabilitating himself.
Given his history, which included being jailed for two years and eight months in 2017, Singh was assessed as being at a medium to high risk of reoffending and harm to others.
As for the protection order, although the victim was not physically harmed, she did suffer emotional harm.
After taking a starting point of 28 months jail, Judge Singh gave him a 25% discount for his guilty plea, then two months extra for remorse, and a further four months for his alcohol addiction.
“You suffer from a number of medical conditions, relating to your heart and anxiety.
“You also have suffered trauma, having lost a son in a quad bike accident, and a number of family members have also passed away, resulting in you using alcohol as a coping mechanism.”
As for breaching his protection order, Singh said he was “lonely”, but the judge wasn’t impressed.
“Let me tell you this, you can’t go to the victim’s place uninvited as much as you may yearn for companionship.
“There are better ways of making contact.”
Singh was jailed for 10 months and will have a 28-day driving stand-down period before his interlock provision kicks in.
He was also ordered to pay medical and analysis fees of $195.34.
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.
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