KEY POINTS:
A man described as a recidivist drink driver apologised today for clocking up his sixth conviction.
"I have changed my ways," Rodney Griffen, 42, told Judge Paul Geoghegan from the dock in Tauranga District Court.
"I wish I had $1 for every time I've heard that," the judge replied.
"I would be in the Caribbean on my yacht at the moment."
Assured by lawyer Simon Whitehead that his client would not be back for a repeat performance, Judge Geoghegan said: "If I had $1 for that I would have a bigger yacht."
He said it was about time Griffen grew up.
"You have come within a hair's breadth of going to prison today."
A jail sentence was justified but it had been a significant time since the last offence, there was no bad driving (Griffen was stopped at a police check point) and the 585 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath was a moderate reading, the judge said.
Griffen said he had been driving because it was his daughter's birthday and he was on the way home.
The penalty was three months home detention, with post detention conditions focusing on rehabilitation for six months.
Griffen was also disqualified from driving for 18 months.
"At 42, there seems to be something adrift about you," Judge Geoghegan told him.
"There is a sense of your life being a bit aimless. You deny you have a problem with alcohol. I invite you to reconsider.
"I think you are kidding yourself. You are a recidivist drink driver."
- NZPA
