Minister's daughter guilty on driving-drug charges

By JO-MARIE BROWN

Health Minister Annette King's daughter, Amanda, has been convicted of dangerous driving causing injury, and of possessing Ecstasy.

The charges were laid after Amanda King crashed her mother's ministerial car last year.

She was found guilty in the Taupo District Court yesterday despite a bid by her boyfriend to shift blame by claiming the Ecstasy was his.

Simon Hanify - King's partner of 14 years - was the sole passenger in the 2000 red Volkswagen Beetle when it and another car crashed head-on on State Highway 1 on the outskirts of Taupo last New Year's Eve.

Police later found a small pink pill with a smiley face on it in the side pocket of a bag retrieved from King's car.

King, aged 31, had asked Sergeant Dave Frazer to search the bag for her medication and take it to her in Taupo Hospital.

Yesterday, he recounted how he asked the Wellington schoolteacher what the pill was.

"She stated, 'I was given it in Wellington before we left'," Sergeant Frazer said.

But Mr Hanify later told Judge Chris McGuire that the pill was his.

"I thought it was in my possession in my bag," said the 32-year-old process worker.

On a lawyer's advice, Mr Hanify had previously chosen not to answer police questions about the pill.

The black bag in which the pill was found belonged to Mr Hanify but Judge McGuire said who owned it was irrelevant.

"I'm satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant had the requisite control over the item [and] that she acknowledged it was an illegal item."

King was fined $200 on the charge of possessing a class-B controlled drug and a further $3000 on two charges of dangerous driving.

She was also disqualified from driving for two years.

Motorists who saw King driving before the accident testified yesterday that her behaviour was erratic.

John and Tania Shortcliff were driving home to Tauranga when King overtook them at "silly" times.

Mrs Shortcliff said King would speed past them before pulling in front and then slowing down.

"I noticed that her driving seemed to be a bit strange, like a learner driver or a drunk driver."

Mr Shortcliff said he had a feeling King was going to cause an accident. Her driving was "getting into road-rage style".

Other motorists testified to having seen King veering across the centre line before colliding head-on with a car travelling south.

Defence lawyer Mike Behrens, QC, said it could not be ruled out that mechanical defects were to blame.

But Judge McGuire said the evidence showed momentary inattention had caused the accident.

The judge ordered that the $3000 fine be paid to the sole occupant of the other car, Carsten Kraut, who suffered brain damage and had been expected to die.

But after yesterday's hearing, Mr Kraut said $3000 did not begin to compensate for what he had lost.

"We're $20,000 out of pocket this year alone."

Mr Kraut, a geologist, said: "It's absolutely stopped my career dead. I think she deserves all she gets."