{"id":621650,"date":"2026-10-05T21:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T21:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621650\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T21:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T21:36:16","slug":"ac-dc-drummer-sentenced-for-careless-driving-in-tauranga-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621650\/","title":{"rendered":"AC\/DC drummer sentenced for careless driving in Tauranga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former AC\/DC drummer Phil Rudd has been fined after driving over a planted roundabout and hitting a tree.<\/p>\n

The 72-year-old ex-rocker, whose legal name is Phillip Hugh Norman Witschke, faced a charge of careless driving in the Tauranga District Court.<\/p>\n

He was part of the high-profile Australian band for more than 30 years, and has lived in Tauranga since 1983.<\/p>\n

However, he failed to appear on the careless driving charge and the matter was dealt with in his absence.<\/p>\n

According to the police summary of facts, on July 13 about 8:30pm, Rudd was driving a 2009 Ferrari 599.<\/p>\n

He was on Lakes Boulevard in Tauriko, on the outskirts of Tauranga, when he stopped after failing to navigate a roundabout.<\/p>\n

“Skid marks and gouges out of the road were consistent with the vehicle becoming airborne over the planted roundabout, before leaving the road up a curb and colliding with a small tree,” the summary said.<\/p>\n

Rudd was taken to Tauranga Hospital by ambulance for observation.<\/p>\n

The summary said he told police he didn’t know what happened before the crash, and had been driving to see his daughter.<\/p>\n

He also said he’d been knocked out earlier that day.<\/p>\n

There was no reparation sought by police.<\/p>\n

Rudd did not appear at an earlier court appearance in mid-September, nor at a formal proof hearing on Monday.<\/p>\n

While Section 118 of the Criminal Procedure Act requires a defendant to be present at the hearing, Rudd’s charge was a category one offence and the court was permitted to proceed without him.<\/p>\n

Category one offences carry a maximum penalty of a fine or a community-based sentence with no possibility of imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Police prosecutor Kerry Sykes handed up photos and a statement from a police officer.<\/p>\n

“I’ve seen the formal statement from the police, there’s no evidence to the contraire, I find the matter proven,” community magistrate Shaun Cole said.<\/p>\n

She fined Rudd $500 and ordered him to pay $100 court costs.<\/p>\n

Rudd has faced charges in the Tauranga District Court before.<\/p>\n

In November 2014, he was charged with attempting to procure the murder of two people after a police raid.<\/p>\n

The charges were withdrawn by police.<\/p>\n

However, he was charged with threatening to kill an employee and methamphetamine and cannabis offences after drugs were found in his home during a police raid.<\/p>\n

Details given in court revealed he told an associate he wanted a former employee “taken out” and offered him $200,000, a motorbike and the choice of one of his cars or a house.<\/p>\n

In July 2015, he received eight months’ home detention after pleading guilty to the threatening to kill charge, as well as possession of 91g of cannabis and 0.478g of methamphetamine.<\/p>\n

He appealed that sentence, having sought a discharge without conviction, but the High Court upheld Judge Thomas Ingram’s sentence.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Open Justice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former AC\/DC drummer Phil Rudd has been fined after driving over a planted roundabout and hitting a tree.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-621650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621650","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=621650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}