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SYDNEY - The wife of a man accused of drunkenly running his boat aground near the prime minister's Sydney residence has told a court she was behind the wheel at the time.
In Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court today, Deborah Elaine Henderson said she was in shock and distraught after steering the boat into a rock at Kirribilli Point last year, sparking a security scare.
Her husband was taken to a police station, where a breathalyser test returned an alcohol reading of 0.095.
Jamie Bernard Henderson, 35, a mobile crane company director of Prospect in Sydney's west, has pleaded not guilty to operating a vessel with a blood alcohol reading of 0.095 and navigating negligently.
Mrs Henderson told the court she was too shocked to tell police she was piloting the boat when it struck the rock.
She and her husband, their three children and two family friends had enjoyed a four hour lunch prior to the grounding on the evening of May 21 last year, she said.
She said she had not been feeling well that day and had agreed before lunch that she would take the wheel.
"I wasn't feeling very well so I volunteered to drive the boat," Mrs Henderson told the court.
"We proceeded across into Sydney Harbour, shortly after ... we came to a sudden jolting stop.
"I realised I really wasn't sure what had happened, chaos reigned for a few moments, (but) I was in control of the boat."
Under cross-examination, she denied she lying to protect to her husband.
She told the court that as her husband was being taken away by police, he telephoned her, and she told him: "I said I am so sorry, I don't know what I did."
The case continues before Magistrate Robyn Denes.
- AAP
