Repeat drink driver jailed for hit-and-run

A repeat drink driver who hit a pedestrian on a crossing and left him for dead has been jailed for two years and four months.

Steven Mear, a 44-year-old invalid beneficiary, was driving drunk for the fourth time when he struck 65-year-old Wen Pei Chen in Otumoetai Rd, Tauranga, last October.

Mr Chen landed 30m down the road and suffered life-threatening injuries. He has had several rounds of surgery in Waikato Hospital.

Mear claimed he did not see Mr Chen before he struck him despite the crossing being well lit, and failed to stop because one of his three passengers told him not to do so.

At the time of the crash, Mear had excess breath alcohol of 532 micrograms - 132mcg over the legal adult limit.

Mear admitted failing to stop at an accident, failing to stop to render assistance, and driving with excess breath alcohol causing injury.

Defence counsel Glenn Dixon blamed Mear's bi-polar disorder and his intellectual slowness for affecting his decision-making on the night of the crash.

Sentencing Mear in Tauranga District Court yesterday, Judge Paul Geoghegan said failing to stop to check whether Mr Chen was even alive was "a very grave error indeed".

Aggravating the offending was Mear's three previous drink-driving convictions in 1990, 1998 and 2005, including a final prison warning, he said.

- NZPA