Mystery-driver defence claim unsuccessful with judge
A MAN who claims a mystery driver was responsible for a police chase, which ended in a collision, has been convicted of dangerous driving.
Grenada North man Leslie Paaka, 22, was found guilty in the Porirua District Court yesterday of dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, failing to stop for police and driving with excess breath-alcohol on June 12.
Constable Jason Butcher said Paaka failed to stop for police in Tawa at 11.30pm.
Officers followed his car as it sped through a 50kmh zone and then took the State Highway 1 offramp near Countdown Tawa in the wrong direction.
The pursuit lasted less than a minute, ending shortly after the car being chased hit another carrying two women. Neither of the women was seriously injured.
Paaka was seen by Butcher in the front passenger seat with his right leg in the driver’s side and he was arrested straight away, along with two other men who were buckled into the back seat at the time of the crash.
Paaka claimed he had not been driving and a fourth person in the car had run away. His lawyer, Peter Ross, said his client could have been climbing either into or out of the driver’s seat when seen by Butcher.
But police prosecutor Paul Macky said the case boiled down to what was seen by officers on the scene after the crash.
The experienced officers were on the lookout for the ‘‘old swaperoo or dash and run’’ and, in the seconds it took police to reach the car, a driver would have been unable to run off undetected.
Macky said the only forensic evidence needed was the cracked windscreen and matching bump on Paaka’s forehead, and a shoe left underneath the clutch.
Judge Bill Hastings said he felt satisfied the police had proved their case. Paaka will be sentenced on December 16.