Driver's motorcade complaint was turned away

A motorist who complained to police about dangerous driving by the Prime Minister's motorcade was told his complaint could not be pursued, a court heard yesterday.

Christchurch company director Warwick Wright told the Timaru District Court he called the *555 service to complain about the excessive speed and bad driving of two vehicles he saw on the outskirts of Christchurch on July 17 last year.

He said he provided the registration number of one of the cars to a police receptionist.

"I made the phone call because I was concerned about what I saw as a continual bad standard of driving.

"I was told that vehicle that I had complained about was the Prime Minister's car and [the receptionist] had no jurisdiction or ability to do anything about it."

Mr Wright was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of five police officers and a civilian driver involved in the motorcade.

It is alleged the vehicles reached up to 172km/h on a journey from Waimate to Christchurch so that Prime Minister Helen Clark could make a flight to Wellington for the Wallabies versus All Blacks test match that evening.

Motorists testified yesterday that they had to take evasive action to avoid the motorcade as it sped along State Highway 1.

Christchurch journalist Brent Fraser told the court he felt his family's lives were at risk when he had to swerve his car to the left to allow the motorcade past near the Mid-Canterbury township of Chertsey.

"They were all travelling down the middle of the road," Mr Fraser said of the three vehicles.

"It looked as though they were nose to bumper."

Mr Fraser said he believed the motorcade was travelling faster than 140km/h.

Bus driver Ian Reddell, who was transporting a team of schoolboy rugby players, told the court he would have collided head-on with the motorcade if he had not lurched on to the left shoulder of State Highway 1 near Hinds, south of Ashburton.

"That was the action that had to be taken to avoid contact with the cars," he said.

"I had to move away from the normal road space I would occupy."

Asked by defence lawyer Norm Scott if he was motivated to complain by a speeding ticket he got about two weeks later, Mr Reddell said he would have complained anyway.

Timaru housewife Deborah Mitchell told the court she was in a Temuka dairy when she saw the motorcade go past in a 50km/h zone at a speed she estimated to be about 140km/h.

"I thought there must be some really horrible emergency. I spent the weekend worried about what had happened."

When she found out it was Helen Clark's motorcade, she went on Television New Zealand's prime-time Holmes show to complain about what she believed was stupid and dangerous driving.

Defence lawyers put it to Mrs Mitchell that she could not be sure of what speed the motorcade had been going.

She agreed that she had judged the speed partially from the "screaming" sound coming from one of the motorcade vehicles.

The defendants

Constable Simon Raymond Vincent, 34, of Ashburton, faces one charge of dangerous driving.

Constable Ian Howard, 36, of Timaru, faces two charges of dangerous driving and one charge of following too closely.

Senior Constable Alister James Doonan, 50, of Timaru, faces one charge of dangerous driving.

Senior Constable Clinton Brian Vallender, 43, of Waimate, faces one charge of causing dangerous driving and one charge of being party to dangerous driving.

A police diplomatic protection squad member, whose name is suppressed, faces 12 charges of causing or being party to dangerous driving.

A civilian driver, whose name is also suppressed, faces two charges of dangerous driving, one charge of travelling too closely and one charge of careless driving.