Hoon burns off ‘Crusher’
Wheeler dealer boy racer saves car. By Hamish McNeilly.
Karn Clarrie Forrest in South Otago became the first person in the country ordered to have his car crushed under so-called ‘‘boy racer legislation’’.
But instead, he managed to offload his 1982 Toyota DX and almost got away with having an old wreck crushed in its place.
The police file into Forrest’s case, released under the Official Information Act, reveals an almost twoyear saga: the wrong vehicle was seized, the correct one was impounded from new owners who acquired it legally, and new charges against Forrest were explored but not pursued.
The file revealed he had never registered his souped-up Toyota in his own name, and was able to place the ownership in a friend’s name before swapping it for an unsuspecting couple’s van.
The Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Act, passed in 2009, earned former Police Minister Judith Collins the sobriquet ‘‘Crusher’’.
And while the headline-grabbing law targeted illegal street racing by requiring a car to be destroyed after a third offence, Justice Ministry figures reveal just three - in Porirua, Palmerston North and Tauranga were destroyed.
Collins stood by the legislation, ‘‘given nothing was happening before’’.
The law was about saving lives given the behaviour of ‘‘overhormoned, under-brained’’ offenders, and not about the number of cars crushed.
As for the nickname, she considered it ’’terribly onedimensional ... I have never called myself by that name. But it is better than ‘Wimpy’ isn’t it?’’
Collins declined to come up with a new one: ’’people just call me ‘Judith’, actually’’.
The saga began when Forrest was spotted doing donuts on State Highway One near Milton late on September 29, 2011.
In December that year, the 18-year-old appeared in the Balclutha District Court, where Judge Stephen O’Driscoll ordered ‘‘that the motor vehicle registration number KS6755 be confiscated and destroyed’’.
Forrest was sent a document the following day stating it was an offence to sell or dispose of the motor vehicle, or any part of it, before it was surrendered or seized.
And a Dunedin scrap metal merchant arrived to find an engineless, beaten-up car with the rego KS6755 on the dashboard, and hauled it away. But it wasn’t Forrest’s Toyota. It transpired that police didn’t issue him with a notice under the Land Transport Act forbidding him from disposing of the vehicle, and five days before his sentencing, he swapped the car for an unsuspecting couple’s van.
In April 2012, police executed a search warrant at a South Otago address and found the Toyota DX. It was the right vehicle, but they were seizing it from a couple who believed they owned it lawfully.
As police sought legal advice, including the possibility of charging Forrest with perverting the course of justice, the car remained impounded. It remained in police possession for 16 months, until Judge O’Driscoll quashed the order for its destruction and permitted it to be returned to the owner.
And Forrest? Approached for comment, he said he would tell his story for $2000.
When that request was declined he replied, ‘‘nah, I don’t care about money, people need to know what it’s like’’, before declining to comment further.