Nelson landscaper avoids harsher sentence after offering to fix garden he drove into while drunk

A landscaper who was driving drunk and who crashed his car through a hedge has had his sentence lightened by offering to fix the damage himself. Photo / 123RF

Landscaper Aaron Copson was “heavily intoxicated” when he failed to take a corner in the Lexus he was driving and crashed into a homeowner’s garden.

The teenager’s sentence on charges of driving with excess breath alcohol and careless driving might have been more harsh if not for his early guilty plea and an offer to use his landscaping skills to fix the hedge he’d driven through.

Police described Copson as having been “heavily intoxicated”. An evidential breath test showed a reading of 738 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath - almost three times the legal limit for drivers over 20.

The breath-alcohol and blood-alcohol limits for drivers under 20 are zero, with penalties including fines and demerit points.

In the early hours of a Sunday morning earlier this month, Copson was driving on a dark rural road in Upper Moutere, near Motueka.

He later told police he had been drinking before he “decided to go for a drive” along Tarrant Drive, which has an 80km/h speed limit.

The 19-year-old came to a left-hand bend in the road and failed to take the corner. He then crossed into the wrong lane before leaving the road and crashing through the hedge, which served as a fence around the rural property.

He did not explain at the time why he was out driving at 3.30am, or why he had crashed, police said.

In the Nelson District Court, Judge David Ruth acknowledged Copson’s early guilty plea, a letter from his employer and his lack of previous matters.

Judge Ruth also took into account Copson’s skills as a landscaper and his offer to put things right for the property owner by offering to fix the damage.

On the charge of driving with excess breath alcohol, he was fined $600 plus court costs and disqualified from driving for six months.

Judge Ruth also made an order that notice be given to the owner of the car Copson was driving that he was not to drive it again, or the owner risked losing it.

On the charge of careless use of a vehicle, he was convicted and discharged.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.