A disqualified driver who made an obscene gesture at a tourist campervan he was passing failed to see an oncoming campervan and crashed into it.<\/p>\n
Fairmont Leigh then got out of his car, went up to the campervan, which had managed to stop before the impact, and yelled at the tourists: \u201cWhat are you doing on my side of the road?\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, Leigh was still serving the terms of a sentence handed out months earlier on five other \u201creasonably similar\u201d driving charges.<\/p>\n
Yet still, a further three months on from when he crashed into the campervan and still on bail, Leigh was seen by worried members of the public driving his Ford Falcon along the T\u0101kaka Valley Highway, passing campervans dangerously.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old later told police, after forcing other drivers off the road while speeding over the T\u0101kaka Hill, he was \u201clate for a funeral\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the Nelson District Court on Friday, his lawyer, Ian Miller, conceded it was a \u201cserious piece of bad driving\u201d, but a brief period in custody since then had been a \u201cwake-up call\u201d.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Rebecca Terry said police had \u201clegitimate concerns\u201d about Leigh, who displayed a \u201cblatant disregard for others\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was appalling driving, as was his attitude. He had no concern for other drivers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Leigh was sentenced to community detention and supervision and further disqualified from driving on charges of dangerous driving and driving while disqualified on the two separate occasions.<\/p>\n
Overtook camper at \u2018excessive speed\u2019<\/p>\n
By July last year, Leigh had been disqualified from driving for an accumulated period on the five earlier driving offences, three of which were for driving dangerously, plus operating a vehicle recklessly and failing to stop for police.<\/p>\n
Late in the afternoon on October 22 last year, he was driving on a remote Golden Bay road in Wharariki, Puponga.<\/p>\n
Miller said the road in that area was very narrow, but there was evidence to suggest the vehicle Leigh crashed into \u201cwasn\u2019t on their side of the road\u201d either.<\/p>\n
Police said in the summary of facts that there was a large campervan in front of him, which he was tailgating on the winding, narrow metal road.<\/p>\n
Leigh overtook the campervan near the crest of a hill at an \u201cexcessive speed,\u201d causing his vehicle to slide in the loose metal, police said.<\/p>\n
As he overtook the camper, he gave the finger to the tourists.<\/p>\n
A few seconds later, he came to a left-hand turn as another campervan approached from the opposite direction.<\/p>\n
Police said it was travelling within the conditions and was able to come to a complete stop before Leigh\u2019s speeding vehicle hit it head-on.<\/p>\n
Leigh got out of his vehicle, went up to the window of the campervan and shouted at the tourists inside why they were on \u201chis side of the road\u201d.<\/p>\n
He got back in his vehicle and carried on, despite his vehicle being a \u201cwrite-off\u201d, then fled on foot when police caught up with him soon after.<\/p>\n
He turned himself in to the police the next day when he admitted he was a disqualified driver, and \u201cnone of it would have happened\u201d if he hadn\u2019t been driving.<\/p>\n
Terry said it was through luck and not skill that the outcome wasn\u2019t worse.<\/p>\n
She said Leigh held a learner\u2019s licence, which had now been cancelled.<\/p>\n
Back behind the wheel, more bad driving<\/p>\n
However, three months later, he was back behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
About 4.30pm on January 27 this year, Leigh was seen driving the Ford Falcon on the T\u0101kaka Valley Highway.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, police received the first of three calls from the public worried about the way he was driving.<\/p>\n
He was seen overtaking two campervans into oncoming traffic, causing the oncoming vehicles to take evasive action, police said.<\/p>\n
He continued on State Highway 60 and travelled up the T\u0101kaka Hill, and \u201caccelerated heavily\u201d as he approached a sharp hairpin bend.<\/p>\n
Leigh lost control of the car, fishtailed towards oncoming traffic, which took evasive action before he regained control and carried on.<\/p>\n
He later told police he was on his way to a funeral and didn\u2019t want anyone else driving the car.<\/p>\n
Miller said the risk presented to others was \u201chigh\u201d, because of the potential for someone to have gone off the side of the T\u0101kaka Hill and down its steep slopes.<\/p>\n
Judge Ian Carter said in sentencing Leigh that there were \u201ca number of aggravating factors\u201d, not least being that he had offended on two more occasions since he was sentenced last July.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth sets occurred when you were already disqualified from driving for similar, earlier offending,\u201d Judge Carter said.<\/p>\n
He noted Leigh\u2019s attitude and behaviour had improved since being released from custody, where he had been held on remand.<\/p>\n
Judge Carter said in sentencing Leigh to three months\u2019 community detention and 12 months\u2019 supervision, that it would \u201chopefully right the ship\u201d.<\/p>\n
Leigh was convicted and discharged on the fine-only charges of careless driving and disqualified from driving for a further 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Tracy Neal, Open Justice reporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disqualified driver who made an obscene gesture at a tourist campervan he was passing failed to see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-532887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}