Driver anger at sex offence law grows

Bus and taxi drivers are today meeting to discuss what they say is a nonsensical new law that will cost many their jobs for "technical offences" committed decades ago.

Land Transport New Zealand last week wrote to 285 drivers saying their P (passenger) endorsement licences would be suspended when the Land Transport Amendment Act takes effect next Monday.

Stories have emerged of people losing their licences for decades-old crimes. A Dunedin bus driver's licence is being suspended because as a 16-year-old 34 years ago, he slept with his 15-year-old girlfriend, two days short of her 16th birthday.

Bus and Coach Association deputy executive Dave Smith today said the group would today meet the Taxi Federation to decide on a plan to voice its disapproval to the Government.

The association was planning to create a list of affected members, including whether the offences were "technical" with consensual sexual activity between two young people close in age.

"From what we can gather there are even people there who have actually married the person concerned and they've been happily married for many years, only to find that hubby loses his job because of an infraction committed with wife, which strikes us as bizarre," he said.

At this stage, Mr Smith did not know how many drivers were affected.

"If there are 400 holders of P licences, a good number of them are going to be bus drivers."

He said if there were genuine serious offences, the drivers should lose their licences, but the law had gone too far in leaving no right of appeal.

"It's said that for every sexual offence under the Crimes Act for which there is a seven-year (maximum) penalty, there really is no appeal against it."

But Mr Smith said far from all the affected people receiving seven years in jail, many would have had no more than a "slap over the wrist" from the courts, recognising the low-level of the offending.

He had personally been a criminal lawyer and in the 1970s he had seen the courts deal with many such cases with very small penalties.

The matter could be easily remedied by the Government if it modified the legislation to allow appeals -- as it did from people convicted of attempted murder, serious assaults, and even people who had tried to procure a contract killer.

As well as the fact drivers were losing their licences, the fact they had only been written to last week gave them an incredibly short notice period before next Monday, Mr Smith said.

- NZPA