Damien Whitlow lay badly injured for hours in a wrecked car beside his dead friend, after an early morning crash in February this year. He says it was a turning point in his long life of crime. Photo / NZ Herald
He was meant to have been dropped off in Hanmer on the way, but said the driver, who had allegedly fallen asleep at the wheel, “forgot” to stop.
After the crash, a truck driver comforted Whitlow as he lay jammed in the rear footwell of the car.
Whitlow told NZME a motorist who had just passed them saw the crash and called emergency services, but the site was so remote it took several hours for them to arrive.
300 previous convictions
The fatal crash happened months after two instances where Whitlow had been driving dangerously and recklessly, for which he was sentenced in the Nelson District Court today.
The high-speed events last year, in which Judge Jo Rielly said he had seriously endangered other road users, added to his tally of 300 previous convictions for a range of offending.
The 46-year-old told NZME outside the court that the offending ranged from dishonesty to drugs and driving matters.
Whitlow hobbled into the courtroom earlier today, still bearing the signs of significant injury and with the help of a walker.
He had a large bag on top of the walker, expecting that he would be going to prison. He had even bought new clothes.
“I see you’ve got your bag packed,” Judge Rielly said as Whitlow settled into the dock.
Damien Whitlow, who survived a fatal crash months after he was arrested for serious driving offences, arrived at court for sentencing with his bag packed, ready for prison. Photo / Tracy Neal
Despite previous promises to change his ways, as noted in a probation officer’s report, he hadn’t.
Whitlow told NZME he no longer had an option but to abide by his promise, out of respect for his friend who had died beside him.
He said that despite the tragedy and the ongoing consequences, he had got to live another day, and had since got his kids back in his life.
“If anything I learned, as I lay in hospital, is that I have to give this s**t up.
“It would disrespect her – she lost her life,” Whitlow said.
He was now serving a six-month sentence of community detention plus 18 months of intensive supervision and was disqualified from driving for a year on charges of dangerous driving and reckless driving just weeks apart last October and November.
“You need to be off the road for at least a year,” Judge Rielly said.
Whitlow was convicted and discharged on a charge of possessing methamphetamine, of which a small amount was found after he was detained by police.
A ‘changed man’
His lawyer, Steven Zindel, said Whitlow now presented as a “changed man” who wanted to be better for himself and his family.
Zindel said he had finally learned that “bad driving leads to fatal results”.
Whitlow was charged with reckless driving after he was clocked driving at 99km/h on the night of October 1 as he overtook another vehicle, his view obstructed by a rise on the urban Nelson street.
He was initially seen driving with no tail-lights, as he followed another vehicle which had turned on to Waimea Rd from a side road, police said.
When stopped by police, he told them he had been “trying to get home” and hadn’t realised how fast he was going.
He denied he was racing with the other vehicle.
Then, on the night of November 9, Whitlow was clocked on police radar driving at 132km/h on a portion of State Highway 6, south of Nelson, known as the Richmond Deviation.
The police officer did a U-turn and began to chase Whitlow, when another police officer ahead clocked him driving on a suburban street at 158km/h, or three times the speed limit, Judge Rielly said.
The police stopped their pursuit because of the serious danger posed by Whitlow’s driving.
He continued to drive erratically, overtaking vehicles at speed, and on the wrong side of the road through the suburb of Stoke.
The police said several other drivers were forced to take evasive action to avoid colliding with Whitlow.
Hard wake-up call
Judge Rielly said it was only a “few short months later” that he was a passenger in the fatal crash.
She acknowledged that his being trapped next to his dead friend for such a long time would have been “very traumatic”.
Judge Rielly said it was a shame it had taken such an event before Whitlow’s apparent wake-up call.
She said a probation officer’s report set out the number of times he had been offered rehabilitation at sentencing, and the number of times he had made promises to change his ways, but had then relapsed.
However, Judge Rielly said when considering other communications, including from people who supported Whitlow in his self-referred rehabilitation since his release from hospital, he appeared genuinely motivated to change.
She hoped he now understood the risk to other people’s lives he had posed from his poor driving, including his own.
“I’m saying all of this now in a way I know it sounds like a lecture because I think you may genuinely be at a turning point in your life.
“I believe you want to change,” Judge Rielly said.
Advice for dangerous drivers
Whitlow told NZME he had wanted to thank the truck driver who had stayed with him, and had sent cards to emergency services people, but didn’t know if they had received them.
His advice to others who chose to drive recklessly and dangerously was to educate themselves on the likely outcome.
“When it comes to speed – we were only doing 90km/h and someone died.
“I had been driving at 158km/h and I’d never thought about the consequences of speed, because until then, there had been none.
“You don’t realise the danger you put others in until tragedy happens.”
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.