NEW DATE: Valencia Skipper was due to be re-sentenced yesterday but now has a new date after a technical issue arose. PHOTO/FILE
NEW DATE: Valencia Skipper was due to be re-sentenced yesterday but now has a new date after a technical issue arose. PHOTO/FILE
The re-sentencing date for Valencia Skipper has been adjourned to later this month after technical issues arose at her initial re-sentencing in the Napier District Court yesterday.
The 22-year-old mother was jailed earlier this year for causing the death of her daughter, Saphire Te Aroha Skipper-Hira, by crashing a caron the Hawke's Bay Expressway when she had meth in her system.
Last month Skipper successfully appealed her sentence of imprisonment, but the appeal against her conviction was dismissed.
Skipper's lawyer, Madeline Laracy, told the Court of Appeal the charge was more serious than the situation warranted, which had resulted in a sentence that was too harsh.
She argued that while there was methamphetamine in her client's system, it was a small amount and there was no evidence it had directly caused the crash.
"The ESR analysis showed that this was an extremely low level of methamphetamine.
"That factor, and the fact that the ESR did not go so far as to draw any causative link between the level of the drug and the driver behaviour, that was a useful indicator for the judge that the lesser charge was the appropriate one."
Skipper will now appear for re-sentencing in the Napier District Court on the morning on October 19.
