Ex-MP David Garrett pleads not guilty

Former Act MP David Garrett appeared at the Auckland District Court on a drink-driving charge. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Disgraced former Act MP David Garrett has pleaded not guilty to a drink-driving charge.

The former Act law and order spokesman appeared before a registrar at the Waitakere District Court today.

Police allege Garrett was driving more than 1-1/2 times over the legal blood alcohol limit when he was pulled over near his rural West Auckland home in July.

Garrett's blood reading is alleged to have been 132mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80.

Garrett declined to talk to media outside court.

It is the third time Garrett has been before the courts.

He has a previous conviction for assault in Tonga in 2002 and was discharged without conviction three years later for stealing the identity of a dead child to obtain a passport.

Garrett is due back in court on his drink-driving charge in February next year.

Last month Garrett appeared before a the Lawyers and Conveyancer's Committee where he was censured, suspended from holding a lawyer's practising certificate for a year and ordered to pay court costs of $8430 to the Law Society.

The hearing related to a false affidavit he had sworn to the court while he faced the charge of stealing the identity of a dead child to get a passport in 2005.

Garrett, who was a practising lawyer at the time, did not mention the Tongan conviction.

He told the court: "The worst I could be accused of is incurring some parking and speeding fines.''

Garrett, who quit Parliament in September last year, had championed the controversial three strikes policy.