Mum drunk with five kids in the car

‘‘On each of the [previous] occasions, your reading was extraordinarily high. You appear to have no concept at all that your driving puts others at significant risk.’’ Judge Garry Collins

A woman who ripped off her support benefits for more than

$100,000 has been caught driving drunk with five children in the car.

Chantelle McGregor was heading down Normandy Avenue in Hamilton when she ran a red light, causing the driver of a car with the right of way to brake hard to avoid smashing into her.

She was seen and stopped by police, who tested her to see if she had been drinking. She returned a reading of 586 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, more than twice the legal driving limit.

Her partner was in the front passenger seat, also heavily intoxicated. In the back were five children aged between 2 and 11 years old.

Regardless of her inebriation, McGregor should never have been behind the wheel. She had since February 2006 been forbidden from driving until such time as she got herself a driver’s licence.

McGregor, 33, of Saint Andrews, was sentenced to nine months of home detention when she appeared yesterday in the Hamilton District Court on a raft of charges. These included driving with excess breath alcohol, driving while forbidden, ill treatment of a child, obtaining by deception, and

12 counts of using a document for pecuniary advantage.

When she was pulled over and arrested for drink driving on the evening of November 24 last year, she told the police she was dropping her partner off so she could drive her motorbike home.

At the time, McGregor was on bail for her fraud charges. She had been receiving the Domestic Purposes Benefit (later named Sole Parent Support) since September

2005 and was obligated to inform the Ministry of Social Development if there were any change to her circumstances.

From May 2011, she began living with her partner. She didn’t tell the ministry. In fact, she told the ministry she was still living alone – a lie she maintained on numerous re-application and ‘‘confirmation of circumstance’’ forms over the following years.

Between May 2011 and February 2017, she was overpaid on her various benefits by a total

$102,399.96.

She was, as Judge Simon Menzies succinctly put it, ‘‘found out’’. When interviewed, she told the ministry’s investigators she had lied because she needed money for her children. She is now repaying the overpayment at $34 per week, which is coming from her current benefit payments.

McGregor was not the only person sentenced yesterday o in that court for driving drunk with a youngster in the car.

Michael Joseph Junior Collins,

37, of Hamilton, had a six-year-old girl in the rear seat of his Mazda and his former partner in the front seat when he failed to negotiate a right-hand bend on Ruakura Road shortly before 4pm on December 23 last year. He drove off the road and hit a barrier fence for a pedestrian crossing before crashing into a ditch and flipping the car. The woman and the girl were pulled from the car by passers-by; however, Collins had to be cut out of the vehicle by firefighters. He suffered critical injuries and spent some time in hospital.

A blood test found he had 243 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, almost five times the legal limit.

It was not the first time Collins had driven drunk. He had similar convictions in 1997, 1999 and 2006.

‘‘It is very evident that you have a significant alcohol problem that has been longstanding,’’ said Judge Garry Collins as he sentenced Collins, no relation, to five months of community detention and 12 months of intensive supervision. ‘‘On each of the [previous] occasions, your reading was extraordinarily high. You appear to have no concept at all that your driving ... puts others at significant risk.

‘‘I could easily justify sending you to prison again.’’

He was saved from such a fate because he had been attending a drug and alcohol programme being run by the Waikato District Health Board and was taking other steps to beat his addiction.

Judge Collins also chastised Collins’ former partner – who was seated in the court’s public gallery – for putting the girl and herself at risk by choosing to get in the car with him when he would have been obviously drunk.

He also urged other family members also in the public gallery to do their bit to ensure Collins’ rehabilitation was a success by not encouraging him to drink and by not drinking in his presence.

Prior to sentencing, Collins’ counsel Lyn Walkington said that her client had been mostly sober for the last 12 years. He and his family had relocated from Christchurch to Hamilton following the

2011 Canterbury earthquake, but the couple had since broken up and he had suffered a subsequent relapse into drinking.

His car was written off in the crash and he had not replaced it. Instead, he was travelling by bicycle to and from work.

Collins’ employers were aware of his affliction and were very supportive of him, she said. ‘‘They want him to get well.’’ Likewise, before McGregor was sentenced, her lawyer Mark Jepson said she had been engaging with numerous police and Salvation Army programmes in an attempt to improve her circumstances. In that case, Judge Menzies agreed, and converted an

18-month jail term to nine months of home detention.

‘‘I’m satisfied you have made some efforts ... and are showing you have a sense of responsibility.’’