Daniel Mehlhopt was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson
A mother has told of the heartbreak she carries after her 4-year-old son was killed in a car crash caused by the child’s father, who was drink-driving.
Dylan Mehlhopt-Foster, described as vivacious and having an obsession with fairies and a passion for BMX cycling, died earlier this year.
“I live in a physical body of a mother but without a child,” his mother, Chloe Foster, told Palmerston North District Court today.
She was at the sentencing of her ex-partner Daniel Mehlhopt, Dylan’s father.
The recidivist drink-driver hung his head as he stood in the dock.
It was Daniel Mehlhopt’s fifth drink-driving conviction in the last two decades. In 2014, a judge told him he was on his “last warning”.
While Mehlhopt had avoided any convictions since then, on a Friday morning in February this year, he drank five bottles of high-alcohol beer before driving from Palmerston North to Waipukurau to pick up Dylan from Foster’s.
He took another bottle with him which he drank along the way.
After putting Dylan in a car seat in the rear passenger side of his vehicle, Mehlhopt began the journey back to Palmerston North.
He approached Dannevirke at the intersection of State Highway 2 and Wahipai Close at 4.20pm but failed to take a sweeping bend and lost control of his car.
The vehicle spun 180 degrees and collided with a tree before rolling down a five-metre bank and coming to a rest at the bottom.
Dylan died at the scene.
Mehlhopt’s blood was taken for analysis at Palmerston North Hospital and found to contain 246 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 50mg.
In court, Judge Jonathan Krebs sentenced Mehlhopt on a charge of driving with excess blood alcohol causing death to two years and ten months’ imprisonment and disqualified him from driving for four years.
“You are way past the point of simply having a drinking problem. You are an alcoholic,” he said.
“That is a disease and it has consumed you.”
The judge said drinking was only part of the problem, and the main issue was that Mehlhopt had chosen to drive that day and put his vulnerable son at considerable risk.
He considered Mehlhopt’s significant drink-driving history as an aggravating factor, but said he had also expressed a high degree of remorse and a willingness to engage in restorative justice.
Foster, who declined to engage in restorative justice, told the court her ex-partner had destroyed her life.
“I feel I’ve not only been robbed of my son, but also my joy in life,” she said.
Foster said she had a difficult pregnancy and was told by doctors it was unlikely she would be able to carry her baby to full term.
So when Dylan was born a healthy baby, it was an extra-special miracle.
“I have to spend the rest of my life as a childless mother,” she said.
Crown prosecutor Deborah Davies said traversed Mehlhopt’s driving history.
In September 2002, he was found driving with 751mcg of alcohol per litre of breath. Only nine days later he was caught again, but this time with a reading of 503mcg.
In 2010, Mehlhopt injured a motorist while driving at more than four and a half times the legal limit.
Then in 2013, he was caught with a breath reading of 806mcg.
Davies said Mehlhopt had abused his position of trust.
“He was Dylan’s dad. He abused that trust by driving under the influence of alcohol,” she said.
“All victims who are in cars have a degree of vulnerability, but in this case, Dylan was 4 years old and was particularly vulnerable.”
Davies was sceptical of Mehlhopt’s remorse, stating he made similar promises to the judge who had given him a final warning some 10 years ago.
She sought a start point of five years in prison.
Defence lawyer Peter Foster said his client was expecting to be sent to prison.
“People are hurting today, and so, too, is Mr Mehlhopt, and he is willing to accept whatever sentence the court imposes.”
Foster said Mehlhopt pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and was extremely remorseful.
He was abstaining from alcohol, seeing a psychologist and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“For the rest of his life, he will have to live with the knowledge that his poor actions killed his son… it’s a sentence that has already begun.”
He spotted the man walking and swerved onto the footpath and hit him.