Sleep driver owns up at 'ninth hour'

PENSIVE: Darryl Cox at his sentencing in Masterton District Court yesterday. PHOTO/ANDREW BONALLACK

A Masterton man who previously argued he was "sleep-driving" when he crashed through a fence has said he was not warned by his doctor about the dangers of mixing sleeping pills and alcohol.

Darryl Donald James Cox, 35, had abandoned his sleep-driving defence and pleaded guilty in Wellington District Court to driving with excess blood alcohol and driving on a suspended licence.

At his sentencing in Masterton District Court yesterday, Cox, through defence lawyer Jock Blathwayt, he said he had no recollection of the incident and had not been warned about mixing Zopiclone and alcohol.

In sentencing Cox, Judge Barbara Morris said she had to accept he was unaware of the risks, but would be "very surprised to learn that with drugs such as Zopiclone that there is not a direction not to couple them with alcohol".

Judge Morris said she also took into account Cox's guilty plea, which came 16 months after the crash.

"It comes at the ninth hour, but nevertheless it arrived, and it meant that the state did not have to call evidence and did not have to go to the expense [of a trial], and it also means you accept responsibility."

She also noted his three previous convictions for excess breath alcohol, the most recent of which was in 2000.

She sentenced him to four and a half months' community detention, disqualified him from driving for 12 months and ordered him to pay reparations of $4100, at $20 a week.

She cancelled his previous fines and replaced them with two further weeks of community detention.

At 3am on November 2013, Cox ploughed his Subaru through Vicki Thompson's fence on French St, destroying a large goldfish pond and rose bushes.

Ms Thompson, who wasn't at the sentencing, said she would have liked to see Cox receive a stronger sentence.

"It's a start but the whole thing was such a farce. It hasn't restored my faith in the justice system."

Her 11-year-old daughter still had trouble sleeping at night, she said.

"I would have liked to see something that hurt him a little bit, either financially or in the way that it hurt me. The kids still wake up if they hear cars doing burn-outs in the night."

In addition to the expense and mess in the garden, the family cat of eight years, Scatter, went missing the night of the crash and has not been seen since.

"I would have liked an apology at the very minimum."