$300 ticket riles judge

Andrew Spencer. Photo / Supplied

A Northland judge has lost his bid to have a speeding ticket thrown out and has been criticised for the way he spoke to the police officer who issued it.

Andrew Spencer, a Maori Land Court judge who lives at Ngawha Springs, near Kaikohe, appeared in the Kaikohe District Court this week in a defended hearing over a $300 ticket.

The court heard Spencer was driving towards Moerewa on State Highway 1's Turntable Hill on December 3 last year when he was clocked at 84km/h. A temporary 50km/h limit was in force for roadworks.

When Spencer drove past, a worker had started removing the warning signs.

Judge Lindsay Moore said the hearing covered "an enormous amount of territory", including what Constable Kitty Mahanga-Nisbet said or didn't say, where she parked her patrol car, which signs were still in place, what the road worker told his boss, and Spencer's demeanour when he was stopped.

Spencer argued through his lawyer, his partner Mere Mangu, that because some of the roadworks signs had been removed - he saw a worker loading them on to his truck - the temporary limit no longer applied. He admitted becoming aggravated, saying it was because the officer would not listen when he tried to tell her he had seen the warning signs being removed.

Mahanga-Nisbet said she was shaken by Spencer's reaction and drove back up the hill to check the speed limit signs were still there.

Judge Moore said it was clear "things got very tense" when Spencer realised the officer was going to give him a ticket.

"I'm saddened that a member of the judiciary and a rather quiet but composed young police officer should have been involved in some of the tensions that arose," he said. The judge did not accept that the temporary speed limit no longer applied.

Spencer was ordered to pay the original $300 fine plus $30 infringement costs.

Afterwards Spencer said he had to fight the infringement as it was a matter of principle.

If temporary speed limits were imposed at random, or when there was no longer a good reason, the integrity of speed limits in general would be eroded.