Lawyer’s roundabout ‘short cut’

A lawyer caught driving the wrong way around a roundabout as an unmarked police car approached, said he was ‘‘just taking a short cut’’ as he ‘‘trundled home from court’’.

Napier lawyer Philip Jensen was driving west on Napier Terrace before going the wrong way around a small roundabout atop Napier Hill, near the old hospital site, and continuing down Hospital Terrace at about 10.30am on November 23 last year.

Detective sergeant Emmet Lynch was approaching the roundabout from Spencer Rd when he noticed a small silver car approaching from his right, in the wrong lane.

Lynch turned on his flashing lights and stopped Jensen, who was subsequently charged with dangerous driving. He denied the charge in a judge-alone trial before Judge Lance Rowe in Napier District Court yesterday.

Lynch told the court he entered the roundabout but had to stop as Jensen’s car ‘‘flashed’’ in front of him, missing his car by about a car’s length.

He estimated the car was travelling at 50 to 60 kmh and he did not recognise the driver.

Lynch, a police officer for 33 years, said he recognised Jensen when got out of his car and walked toward the silver car.

‘‘I asked [Jensen] why he had driven through the roundabout on the wrong side of the road ... He immediately responded that he had not done that. I then said: ‘Philip can you please tell me why you drove in that manner?’ He then said: ‘Stop pontificating Mr Lynch. Go and get me what you are going to get and let me go.’ I took his licence, returned it to him and told him he would be receiving documentation,’’ Lynch said.

Jensen’s lawyer, Chris Tennet, cross-examined Lynch, spending some time putting to him that Jensen could have seen down Spencer Rd as he approached the roundabout. Lynch said it was not possible to see down Spencer Rd as Jensen claimed as it was obscured by trees and foliage.

Tennet told Lynch he was

being ‘‘dishonest’’, ‘‘obtuse’’ and that he was ‘‘either mistaken or a liar’’.

Jensen told the court he had lived on Hospital Lane, off Hospital Terrace, for about eight years and he travelled through the roundabout ‘‘multiple times a week over several years’’.

The area was devoid of people at the time of day he was caught and ‘‘that’s why I did the manoeuvre I did’’.

‘‘I was just trundling home after working in court that morning,’’ he said.

‘‘I was not going fast. I had all the time in the world.’’

He said he took the ‘‘little short cut’’ the wrong way around the roundabout after seeing that there were no vehicles approaching and if he had seen a vehicle coming up Spencer Rd he would not have taken the short cut.

‘‘I’m a well-known person in Napier. I’m not about to do that in front of anyone. I wouldn’t have wanted to be seen to have done something wrong,’’ Jensen said.

‘‘There was no potential for danger ... There is no-one around at that time of day,’’ he said.

‘‘It was laziness, convenient." When he stopped for the police car he expected to get a ticket for driving the wrong way around the roundabout. He said Lynch was shouting at him and it was at that point that he told Lynch to stop pontificating.

‘‘I was sitting there thinking ‘this guy’s ranting at me’ I didn’t want to say ‘ranting’. I wanted to use a kinder word than that, so I used ‘pontificating’.’’

Jensen said when Lynch drove away, ‘‘I thought I’d dodged a ticket’’. But days later he received a summons.

Judge Rowe reserved his decision.