Patience Pari, dangerous driver who crashed into Rotorua mum and kids, wants to go to rehab

Patience Pari appearing in the Rotorua District Court last year. Photo / Andrew Warner

A dangerous driver who smashed her car into two others — including one containing a mum and her three children — has vowed to change and wants to go to rehab.

Patience Tina Maree Pari appeared for sentencing in the Rotorua District Court yesterday after pleading guilty on two charges of dangerous driving causing injury, refusing a police request to give blood, resisting police and aggravated assault.

The offences happened on July 25 in Devon St after Pari crashed into Rotorua nurse Annemarie Gallagher’s car as she was driving home after picking her children up from school. Pari then crashed into another car in Devon St containing three men before running from her car and having a physical fight with a police officer who tried to stop her.

She refused to give a blood sample to police, but alcohol was found inside her car.

Annemarie Gallagher (pictured) was driving her three children home when Patience Pari hit their vehicle with her car. Photo / Kelly Makiha

A pre-sentence report recommended home detention but despite two court appearances last year intended for sentencing, no suitable address for her to live at could be found.

She was remanded on bail while an address was found but on January 9, she was arrested for breaching her bail conditions.

She has been held in custody since.

Her lawyer, Alistair Burns, told Judge Jane McMeeken yesterday that Pari was keen to make changes and go into residential rehabilitation for 12 weeks.

To get into that rehabilitation centre, she had been offered a live-in place with Lifewise first to do a pre-rehabilitation course.

While Lifewise was not a 24/7 residential programme, it had rules she needed to abide by, Burns said.

Judge McMeeken said she was impressed with a letter Pari had handed her lawyer that expressed her desire to change ,and remorse for what she had done.

The judge said she was aware Pari had had a “difficult life” and while it was not an excuse for what she had done, it was an explanation of where she was finding herself.

She remanded her on strict bail conditions to not drink alcohol, not to go into licensed premises, not to offer violence and to abide by the Lifewise rules.

“I wish you all the best ... You know what you’ve got to do, you’ve told me in this letter you can do it, so good luck.”

She will reappear in court on June 23 for a progress report on how her rehabilitation is going.