A motorist's drink-drive conviction has been overturned because police failed to provide his lawyer with all documentation.
Geoffrey Craig Ganley was convicted in the Auckland District Court in February of driving with excess breath-alcohol.
But Justice David Morris, sitting in the High Court at Auckland, has now overturned the conviction.
Mr Ganley's lawyer, Frank Hogan, complained that he had not received the field book - which records any problems with the performance of the breath-testing machine - from the police "booze bus."
The judge declined a Crown request that if he allowed the appeal, the matter should be sent back to the district court for retrial. He said there was no evidence the police had deliberately withheld the material.
Counsel had been unable to tell him what the field book contained or even if it still existed.
Justice Morris said it would impose an unfair burden for Mr Ganley to undergo another hearing, at considerable cost, when there was the possibility that the document which might have been of assistance to him no longer existed.
The judge recommended that police prosecutors use a checklist of matters to be confirmed before a drink-drive hearing got under way.
Drinking conviction reversed
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