Dangerous driver hits a brick wall in police chase

Police gave up the chase after Hikaka, who was carrying a passenger, drove through a red light at speed. His vehicle was found crashed into a brick fence.

Lights off, veering over the road at double the speed limit, a Palmerston North man was determined the cops weren’t going to catch him.

They did in the end, but not before Jason Andre Werahika Hikaka’s dangerous joyride through the city.

‘‘The driving episode was seriously dangerous. You put everybody at risk at a time when there would have been other traffic on the road,’’ Judge Lance Rowe told the 48-year-old in the Palmerston North District Court this week.

‘‘You should have been driving as if the most precious person to you was coming the other way.’’

It’s lucky they weren’t, on the evening of April 19, when Hikaka’s journey was halted by a brick wall.

Between 7 and 8pm police signalled for Hikaka, who was suspended from driving, to pull over at a routine traffic stop on Wood St. But he was having none of that and drove off with the police in pursuit, reaching speeds of 100kmh in a 50kmh zone.

He’d veer on to the wrong side of the road, with no headlights in the autumn darkness, forcing oncoming traffic to get out of the way.

Police gave up the chase after Hikaka, who was carrying a passenger, drove through a red light at speed. His vehicle was found crashed into a brick fence.

He’d fled the scene, but left his ID in the car, along with weed and other drug paraphernalia.

And on July 23, at Foxton Beach, Hikaka refused to give a blood sample to test for alcohol and drugs when he was stopped by police.

He’d also breached a protection order, including a threat to ‘‘smash’’ the woman the order was in place to protect.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she would have to take her children and go into hiding if Hikaka, who has a criminal history but no recent convictions, was bailed.

‘‘Mr Hikaka, you need to reflect on why it is people are scared of you in this way,’’ the judge said.

Defence lawyer Fergus Steedman said Hikaka had recently spent time in South Auckland with a daughter and industrial water blasting work was available to him there.

While awaiting sentencing, Hikaka moved from Manawatu¯ Prison to Whanganui Prison to support his son behind bars.

‘‘It’s sad that in order to help his son, he had to transfer from one prison to another.’’

On 11 driving, drug and protection-order-breach charges, Hikaka was jailed for 13 months and disqualified from driving for 18.