Whakat\u0101ne District Court<\/a> on Tuesday for sentencing.<\/p>\nRest home: \u2018Horrific\u2019 accident affects independence<\/p>\n
A staff member from the rest home provided a victim impact statement on behalf of the woman, who has some intellectual difficulties, which Community Magistrate Shaun Cole referred to in court.<\/p>\n
The statement said that before the accident, the woman had been \u201cquite independent\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was able to freely walk to the shops and meet friends for coffee. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe was able to go to church with friends, and she would walk there. She was able to go to the RSA on a Friday night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement said the woman had been walking to the shops as she\u2019d done hundreds of times before, and it had been an \u201cabsolute worst nightmare for one of our residents to be injured in such a horrific incident\u201d. <\/p>\n
While the woman\u2019s injuries had seemed minor to some, as time progressed, they became far more significant.<\/p>\n
She needed multiple surgeries, and at the time the letter was written, the woman was still having long-term medical treatment. <\/p>\n
She needed wound care, which was not pleasant \u2013 it was time-consuming with pain and discomfort \u2013 and this was expected to continue for \u201cat least another three months\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her independence and quality of life had also declined.<\/p>\n
Archer\u2019s lawyer, Lisa Ebbers, said he had found the \u201cwhole experience very upsetting\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe has openly said he would never set out to hurt someone,\u201d she said, explaining that he was \u201cvery remorseful\u201d for what occurred.<\/p>\n
Archer had wanted to meet with the victim face-to-face for a restorative justice conference, but the woman had been unable to take part because of her diminished mental ability.<\/p>\n
Ebbers noted that the victim may have been less aware of her surroundings when the accident happened, because of her cognitive issues. <\/p>\n
However, Ebbers was clear that she was not placing blame \u201cin any way\u201d on the woman, and Archer accepted what he had done, and his part in it.<\/p>\n
She also submitted, however, Archer could not be held entirely responsible for the ongoing health issues that the woman had, as some of those were because of \u201cdiffering factors\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ebbers said Archer had lost his job at the concrete company, and while he had found another truck-driving position, he was likely to lose that with the inevitable disqualification that would come with sentencing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s really only qualified to do work as a truck driver, so he\u2019s going to find it very difficult to find alternate work in the meantime.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ebbers also referred to Archer\u2019s \u201cvery limited\u201d financial means, noting he was the sole earner for his family.<\/p>\n
She submitted that the appropriate sentence was community work, coupled with emotional harm reparation, and the minimum mandatory disqualification period of six months, with police agreeing this approach was \u201cspot on\u201d. <\/p>\n
Cole said the aggravating feature was that Archer had failed to check the surroundings before moving off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say that no punishment today can cure the pain or the suffering that that lady\u2019s had, both physical and emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the essential test of careless driving was whether \u201cthe standards of driving fell below that of a reasonably skilful and prudent driver in the circumstances that existed at the time and place\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe degree of carelessness is not what happened at the accident, but the driver\u2019s conduct prior to the accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archer was sentenced to 40 hours\u2019 community work, and was ordered to make a $600 payment to Age Concern by November 1.<\/p>\n
He was also required to pay court costs of $153, and was disqualified from holding or obtaining a driver\u2019s licence for six months.<\/p>\n
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n
Join NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman\u2019s walker was pushed onto Landing Rd, and members of the public tooted their horns to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,263110,1770,4189,15453,296,44012,5158,1304,111,43,139,79327,69,1523,7859,5161,51212,23857,19054,4519,34890,2240,1316,102,1354,8598],"class_list":["post-533232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-archer","tag-concrete","tag-driving","tag-elderly","tag-into","tag-kyle","tag-man","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nightmare","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pensioners","tag-sentenced","tag-shops","tag-truck","tag-turned","tag-usual","tag-walk","tag-whakatne","tag-when","tag-with","tag-woman","tag-worst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533232","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=533232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}