A Dunedin father and road safety advocate has been sentenced for crashing his car on a city motorway, wiping out 200m of the wire barrier.
Mark David Cummings, 49, appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to threatening to kill, posting harmful digital communication, possessing cannabis, two charges of assaulting police, two charges of resisting police, two charges of speaking threateningly and refusing to undergo a compulsory impairment test.
In 2019, the defendant’s 15-year-old daughter Jayde Amy Cummings was killed instantly when the driver of the ute she was in failed to stop at the intersection of Church Rd West and Huntly Rd, in Outram.
The incident resulted in a prolonged road safety campaign by Cummings and he was vindicated by a coroner’s report last year.
The police summary revealed that on March 22, Cummings was driving his Ford Ranger south on Dunedin’s Southern Motorway.
He drifted into the metal wire centre barrier and witnesses said he made no attempt to brake.
About 200m of the centre barrier was wiped out, and his vehicle became entangled in the wire.
While being transported to Dunedin Central Police Station, Cummings fell asleep.
He admitted to officers he had taken 10 sleeping pills and used cannabis before driving.
About 8pm Cummings was taken back to his home but 30 minutes later he showed up at his mother’s house, acting aggressively, and police were called again.
When they arrived, the defendant yelled at them before a struggle ensued between him and two constables.
Once police restrained him, he was found to be holding a lighter and a small bag with 0.78g of cannabis.
Cummings told one officer that he would remember him, he was going to “get it” and he would “make him pay”.
Police assisted the defendant to regain his balance before he put his feet on to the couch and jumped back in an attempt to “body slam” the constable into the wall.
The defendant also admitted that on February 9 he posted a threatening message on his Facebook profile which ended with “I will see u soon c… “.
The next month, he turned up at the victim’s place of work, smacked the corner of his desk and said “10 grand on the corner of this f…ing desk by 4 o’clock today, or else I am going to break your kneecaps and whatever else I have to. The boys will be here as well”.
Yesterday, Judge Hermann Retzlaff acknowledged Cummings had serious mental health struggles and was changing medication at the time of his offending.
The judge accepted that this contributed to the defendant’s behaviour at the time.
Judge Retzlaff sentenced Cummings to 18 months’ intensive supervision, noting he had already spent seven weeks in custody and five months on electronically monitored bail after charges were laid.
“There’s been positive steps taken since this offending and the sentence will be designed to encourage you to continue,” the judge said.
He also disqualified Cummings from driving, but backdated the disqualification start date to May 13 as he had been on a bail condition not to drive.
In December 2021, Cummings was sentenced to nine months’ intensive supervision after he used a wooden baton to smash a hole in a lawyer’s office and damaged the Dunedin City Council building.
The outburst was a response to reading a media article that the teen driver who caused his daughter’s death had been discharged by the Youth Court.
At the time, Judge Evangelos Thomas told Cummings: “Nobody can hold your grief or your rage against you”.