Death looms for town drunk

By KELLY BLANCHARD in Rotorua
If the booze doesn't get Gladys Lillas, an innocent Rotorua driver probably will. Many fear it's only a matter of time before she is skittled by a car.

Gladys loves to get drunk and dance in the traffic outside her home in Rotorua's Old Taupo Rd.

When she's sober, she knows she has to walk on the footpath but when drunk, she doesn't care.

The 60-year-old is famous locally for all the wrong reasons.

While police, lawyers, taxi drivers, health officials and businesses owners at Westend near her home all have a soft spot for her, they fear it's inevitable that one day her drunken antics will see her hit by a car.

Sergeant Anthony van Dorp of the Rotorua Police Strategic Traffic Unit said it was a miracle Gladys had not been run over or caused any serious crashes as a result of drivers being forced to dodge her on the road.

Members of the public ring police when Gladys is on the road and police try to get to her quickly.

Rotorua District Court judges have expressed concern about Gladys' actions and she's been sent to jail to protect the public.

Two years ago, Judge Chris McGuire jailed Gladys for two months after she was picked up by police for disorderly behaviour.

"I am not interested in you," Judge McGuire said at the time. "You have decided to live the way you live. I am concerned about other people who might injure themselves and other people as a result of what you are doing."

Gladys' husband, Bobby, died about five years ago and she has no contact with other family members, including eight out of 10 surviving children.

This year Gladys agreed to go to an alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre near Opotiki, run by the Kahanui Trust. She lasted just over three months but went back to the booze when she left. Since returning to Rotorua she has been up to her old tricks, drinking and dodging traffic.

She has a string of about 20 convictions, mainly for disorderly behaviour. The police cells are her second home, the place where she sobers up - before getting drunk again.

She calls G3, which is the detoxification cell, her cell and says she always requests smoked fish for tea. But she doesn't like going to the police cells or to jail.

"I don't want to walk in the middle of the road any more. I've been using the footpath. Everyone, even the police, are proud of me."

Gladys calls alcohol "boozy woozy" and her favourite drop is red wine. But it's actually cheap port she drinks. It's sold in most bottle stores by the flagon for $15.

When the Daily Post called at her house, the slightly built woman was semi-sober. It was just after 9am and Gladys had had a coffee cup of "red wine" for breakfast.

By the time we left just before 11am she had drunk two more cups and was "well on the way".

Asked to pose outside for a photograph, Gladys leapt out on to the road before she could be stopped, to "demonstrate" how she gets across, by stopping traffic. She only just made it as cars ground to a halt for her.

Although Gladys was clutching $15 in her hand to buy another flagon, she can't buy the booze herself. No one in town serves her anymore and she is banned from the New World Supermarket and bars and bottle stores in the Westend shopping area.

"I get my mates to buy it for me. But everyone knows the boozy woozy is for Gladys."

Shopkeepers at Westend are fond of Gladys and say she is always polite, even when they ask her to leave. Whenever they see her in the middle of the road, they all hope she makes it to the end of the day.

Gladys describes herself as being like a hedgehog when she wanders in the middle of the road. Although ultimately she only does it because she is drunk, she claims that sometimes it's because she's feeling suicidal.

"I say that in all honesty. The lucky hedgehogs get killed.

"I just get locked up."

Although she successfully sobered up for three months she doesn't think she will get help again.

"Red wine is my lifeline ... it's not a case of can't, my baby, it's a case of won't - I love boozy woozies."