Radio breakfast host charged with road-rage attack

Mike Baird

Radio announcer Mike Baird has been accused of attacking a teenager in a bout of road rage.

Baird has been charged with using a 4WD to knock a teenager off a mountainbike, apparently after the teen made an obscene gesture at him. The high-profile radio star is also accused of driving over the mountainbike deliberately.

Name suppression lapsed on Saturday for Baird, who has pleaded not guilty to assaulting a teenager with a 4WD utility vehicle on September 17, and intentionally damaging a mountainbike.

Baird resigned from Classic Hits FM this week after five years with the station.

His employer, in a statement last week, wished him well and said Baird had decided to take a break. Baird had been Rotorua's top breakfast host for the past three years.

Earlier, Baird had been granted name suppression until the end of the school holidays. At a September 22 court appearance, Judge Lindsay Moore said he had granted only temporary suppression, partly because he did not wish to financially jeopardise any Classic Hits-arranged school holiday programmes that Baird may have been involved in.

Judge Moore said he viewed the alleged incident very seriously as it was an accusation of road rage, "a problem which has become all too common in this country and is a matter for public comment".

Many people in Rotorua already knew about the incident and were talking openly about it, he said.

"What's alleged is that whilst he was driving, a cyclist made an obscene gesture at him, as a result of which the defendant swerved at the cyclist, who finished up being knocked off his bike."

Judge Moore said another reason for not granting ongoing name suppression was Baird's high profile in the community.

"There are particular problems in suppressing names of those whose personality and viewpoints are public property."

If it was a member of another media organisation who was facing the charges, it was likely Baird would be among those wanting to broadcast who it was, Judge Moore said. "This is a classic example of the media wanting things both ways.

"On one hand the media representatives demand the right to publicise everything.

"[But] here we have a situation where someone from that side of the fence wants a protection that the media are very often highly critical of when it is granted to anyone else.

"Often when suppression orders are sought it is in the context [that] what is alleged to have happened did so in a private setting. That can't be so in a public street."

Judge Moore had warned Baird against talking about issues associated with road rage on his radio show.

Baird will reappear in court on October 31.

Baird has had a high profile in the Rotorua community as a host or compere for community and charity events.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)