Ben Kelly was seen driving on the Lewis Pass at speeds up to 140km/h before he was involved in a collision with another vehicle in which the driver was seriously injured. Photo / 123rf
Ben Kelly was seen driving on the Lewis Pass at speeds up to 140km/h before he was involved in a collision with another vehicle in which the driver was seriously injured. Photo / 123rf
A man’s “horrendous” high-speed and risk-taking driving on a South Island highway ended in a crash that seriously injured another driver who was thrown from their car on impact.
Ben Kelly is now in prison for driving dangerously on the Lewis Pass and for charges that arose later from his assaulting his partner while a protection order was in place. He also bit a police officer on the arm with such force the officer needed hospital treatment for the wound.
The 45-year-old avoided charges for the crash through lack of evidence linking it to his fault, despite witness accounts of his driving in the half-hour beforehand.
His lawyer, Josh Friend, described the driving as “horrendous” and “quite honestly, very dangerous”.
Crown prosecutor Daniel Baxter described Kelly during sentencing in the Nelson District Court as “the aggressor in the vehicle and the aggressor at home”.
Ben Kelly was driving dangerously on State Highway 7, on the Lewis Pass in a narrow and winding area with an 80kph speed limit just before he collided with another vehicle. Photo / Flickr
On the afternoon of June 16 last year Kelly was driving on State Highway 7, on the Lewis Pass in a narrow and winding area with an 80km/h speed limit.
He was seen tailgating another car, overtaking others on blind corners, crossing the centreline and nearly losing control on the gravel verge.
At one point he got out of his car to urinate, but once back in the car, he caught up with the traffic he had passed earlier at speeds of up to 140km/h.
Again, he overtook on blind corners, tailgated, and veered across the road. He then overtook a large truck, without knowing if there was oncoming traffic.
About half an hour later he collided with the driver of the smaller vehicle, travelling in the same direction who was ejected on impact and was left with serious multiple injuries including a broken neck and back.
Emergency services had to carry out a delicate extraction from the area down a bank where the driver was thrown.
Kelly’s car also left the road and rolled down the bank. He managed to scramble back up to the road where he verbally abused people who had stopped to help.
He was taken to hospital but refused to give a blood sample, telling police to f*** off.
The driver of the other vehicle was flown to hospital by rescue helicopter.
The following day Kelly refused to speak with the police and told them to “figure it out for themselves”.
Judge Jo Rielly said that it would have been nice for the court to know more to acknowledge the injured driver, but there was no information.
Kelly was sentenced to a total of 17 months in prison on two sets of charges at separate times last year, arising from the dangerous driving and then on December 13 last year, charges that arose from his assaulting his partner.
Early that evening Kelly and his partner were at a social sporting event when a minor altercation started as they were driving home, and they struck each other.
Kelly then elbowed his partner in the face and chest, and then later he punched her in the face after they arrived home and an argument erupted over what had occurred earlier in the car.
The woman was frightened enough to leave the house and hide but returned to gather items. Police arrived to find Kelly pushing her out the door and yelling.
He then yelled abuse at the police, and while being arrested he began banging his head on the patrol car window.
As one of the officers reached across to stop him, Kelly bit him on the arm and punctured his skin.
Baxter described the assault as being at the upper end because it involved biting a police officer who had tried to stop Kelly from hurting himself.
The officer was taken to hospital where he was treated for the wound.
Once at the police station, Kelly then resisted violently while in the charging room and kicked another constable in the back of the leg.
Judge Rielly noted that Kelly was “no stranger to the justice process”, and even though his driving behaviour was “very serious”, it was clear the most serious offence was the assault on a person in a family relationship, for whom a protection order was in place, and therefore he breached that order.
On the charges of assault on a person in a family relationship, breach of a protection order and assaulting a police officer, Judge Rielly set a starting point of 15 months in prison.
After uplifts and credits, the result was 14 months in prison on the set of charges linked to the assaults.
On the dangerous driving charge, he was sentenced to a maximum of three months in prison, to be served cumulatively.
He was given a one-month uplift on the charge of refusing blood, and then a credit for his guilty plea, to arrive back at the three-month maximum.
“The penalty is one that some might think wholly inadequate but the maximum (penalty) is what it is,” Judge Rielly said.
The final sentence was one of 17 months in prison. Kelly was denied leave to apply for home detention because of earlier non-compliance while on bail, and was disqualified from driving indefinitely.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
