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A former policeman has been sentenced to 12 months home detention and banned from driving for two years on three charges of careless driving causing injury and his third drink driving charge.
Jason Connell Peters was also banned from drinking, ordered to undergo an assessment for alcohol abuse and to pay nearly $29,000 in reparation when he appeared in Auckland District Court today.
Peters had earlier pleaded guilty to the charges after an horrendous accident at Maramarua on the Hauraki Plans on May 12, 2006, which injured several people and left one woman fighting for her life in a coma.
The woman, Michelle Davies, entered the court and stood in front of Peters as he sat in the dock to read her victim impact statement, but was told by Judge Anne Kiernan to stand further back in the body of the court.
She told the court the accident happened three weeks after she was married and her life had changed forever. She said she was once a fit and agile woman but the brain injuries had left her sluggish, slow and clumsy.
She had lost her interior design business and her husband's construction business had been seriously affected.
During the victim statements, Peters sat impassively in the dock but his lawyer, Paul Davison, QC, told the court he was genuinely remorseful and had offered a reparation payment of $25,000.
- NZPA
