Parole charges against killer driver dismissed
Charges have been withdrawn against killer hit-and-run driver Rouxle Le Roux, who twice failed to answer the door when her parole officers came knocking.
Le Roux is serving an 11-month home detention sentence after the death of teenager Nathan Kraatskow. The learner driver had been drinking and smoking cannabis at the time of the incident on May 18 last year.
A condition of her sentence is that she answer the door and present herself to authorities at any given time — but she was charged last month for failing to do so.
Le Roux was due to appear at the North Shore District Court on Tuesday but instead the charge was withdrawn. Her lawyer, Belinda Sellars, QC, told the Herald it was “the most sensible thing to happen”.
Separately she appeared at the Auckland District Court yesterday morning for a judicial monitoring hearing to see how her sentence is progressing. Details of that hearing cannot be reported.
Before the hearing Le Roux said she was “fast asleep” on the day two probation officers knocked on her door on February 12 at 9am. Later that day on their second visit Le Roux said she was upstairs in the bathroom.
“I didn’t hear anything and they never yelled out. When I went downstairs to get my phone I noticed I’d missed a call from my probation officer so I texted, ‘Is everything ok?’.”
A few days later while Le Roux was at community service — part of her sentence — her probation officer told her she was being charged with breaching her sentence conditions.
“I was told off for not answering the door and not responding to her message, which I did straight away, not hours later as she implied.
“She told me a letter was sent to warn me officers would be at my house on the 12th. That letter arrived four days later,” she said.
“I feel Corrections let me down. I know it was my responsibility to answer the door, but they could’ve texted — mum and me were both home that day.
“They know when I’m not home because they can track me.
“No matter what I do or say I feel they are targeting me in a sense.”
Sellars said the breach was “harsh” for something that was essentially a miscommunication.
Le Roux completed a Community Alcohol and Drug course in December and hasn’t been tempted to drink alcohol or smoke cannabis since.