No jail for drink driver who caused death

File photo / Northern Advocate

A Masterton woman, who caused the death of an elderly dial-a-driver while she was three times over the legal blood alcohol limit, has escaped jail.

Tracy Amelia Kent, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of driving with excess breath alcohol causing the death of James Lee, aged 76, in Wellington in December.

During sentencing at the Wellington District Court, Judge Ian Mill said Kent escaped prison time by only the narrowest of margins.

Mitigating factors, including the damage going to prison would have had on her three-year-old son, led to her getting 12 months home detention.

Kent had been drinking all night when she pulled out of the Te Papa museum carpark just after 2am on December 23, driving the wrong way down a one way system and without her lights on. She then crashed into Mr Lee, a dial-a-driver, who was heading in the opposite direction.

Mr Lee died in hospital a few days later. Another passenger in the vehicle Mr Lee was driving was injured.

Judge Mill said mitigating factors also included the personal and mental difficulties Kent was suffering at the time of the crash, an early guilty plea and her remorse.

However while the mental and personal problems she was facing at the time may have explained why she drank on the night, they did not explain why she drove, Judge Mill said.

"At that point you became a danger to society not just to yourself," he told a tearful Kent.

The crime Kent committed was serious and had left Mr Lee's wife heartbroken, the judge said.

Kent will be required to spend her home detention sentence at a Masterton house. She was also sentenced to 200 hours community work, to pay $30,000 reparation to Mr Lee's wife, had her licence revoked for five years and is required to undertake alcohol counselling.

- NZPA