Offenders avoid paying $13m in fines

The total amount of fines owed to Tauranga District Court as at June 2015 is $19.5 million.

Almost $13 million worth of fines imposed by Tauranga District Court have been wiped in the past five years.

Figures obtained by the Bay of Plenty Times under the Official Information Act show that, since the 2011 financial year, $12.8 million in fines has been wiped in Tauranga. Most of these remittances were granted for traffic and vehicle regulatory offences, making up $10.9 million of the total fines in the period.

The value of fines wiped has dropped dramatically within the past five years.

Ken Evans

Within Tauranga, remittances dropped from $4.5 million in 2011 to $956,466 in 2015 - a 78.6 per cent decrease. The number of offenders being granted remittances in the same period dropped 32.5 per cent from 2151 to 1453.

Nationally, $266.7 million in fines have been remitted since 2011.

Ministry of Justice general manager of collections Jacquelyn Shannon said when a fine or reparation was imposed the ministry would firstly seek payment in full or arrange payment options.

Enforcement could include clamping vehicles, seizing and selling property, making compulsory deductions from a person's income or bank account, issuing warrants to arrest, suspending drivers' licences and preventing a person's international travel.

Ms Shannon said in some circumstances the remittal of a fine was considered the most appropriate action, for example, if a person died, a company was in liquidation or to remit small outstanding balances under $5. If enforcement action had been undertaken and was unsuccessful, fines could be remitted and substituted for an alternative sentence of community work, community detention, home detention or imprisonment.

A judge or registrar may also choose to remit penalties added to a fine to encourage payment of the original fine.

The total amount of fines owed to Tauranga District Court as at June 2015 is $19.5 million. Of this, $7.4 million is overdue and $10.1 million is under arrangement to be paid, or not yet due.

This compares to $576 million owed nationally.

Sensible Sentencing Trust Tauranga co-ordinator Ken Evans said the trust believed that, where a fine was imposed by the court, it should be paid by the person who had been fined.

"Just because they make excuses and so forth that they are having difficulty paying it, there's no excuse to have it wiped.

"The judge should say 'give us your car or pay the fine'."

Mr Evans said someone breaking the law by drinking and driving was putting lives at risk and should not be let off a fine. He said offenders should pay the cost of the police time they had taken up.