Eleven months' home detention for street racer

A teenager involved in an illegal street race crash which resulted in a teenage girl having part of her leg amputated has been sentenced to 11 months' home detention and ordered to pay his victim $8000.

Kahn Roper, 18, pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful street racing causing injury and driving with excess alcohol.

The charges were laid after an incident in which Amy Duncan, 18, lost part of her leg.

Sentencing Roper in the North Shore District Court today, Judge Barbara Morris told him the combination of alcohol, inexperience and speed led him to lose control of the vehicle.

"You hurtled into this young woman and within seconds her life was physically and emotionally crushed. Nothing can bring back the life she had," Judge Morris told Roper.

Ms Duncan, who was not connected to the racing, was sitting at the side of the road in the North Shore suburb of Bayview early on April 10 last year when a car lost control and hit her.

She was rushed to hospital, where doctors had to amputate her leg below the knee.

The former Glenfield College student was planning to serve in the Royal New Zealand Navy as a gunner.

Roper was disqualified from driving for two years.

- NZPA