Drunk driver who pulled out in front of family avoids jail
The intoxicated driver of a car who pulled out into the path of a family - who were unable to avoid smashing into him - has avoided going to jail.
That was despite him having four previous drink-drive convictions since 2006 - the most recent coming just 17 days before his crash on the outskirts of Newstead.
Nahum Beazley’s good fortune may have been down to a decision by the police to not charge him with drink-driving causing injury - even though he injured three of the five people in the car that struck his badly enough to hospitalise them.
Instead he was charged and sentenced on driving with excess blood alcohol, careless driving and driving while disqualified.
It was a situation that mystified Judge Arthur Tompkins.
“It’s unclear why you are not for sentence on much more serious charges,” remarked the judge at this month’s hearing, shortly before sentencing Beazley to four months of home detention and indefinitely disqualifying him from driving.
It was on August 15, 2023 when Beazley, 41, appeared in the Rotorua District Court charged with driving with excess breath alcohol on May 11 of that year. He was sentenced to supervision and disqualified from driving for six months.
In spite of that he was back behind the wheel and well over the legal alcohol limit when, at 4.15pm on September 2, he pulled out of Platt Rd onto State Highway 26 - into the path of oncoming traffic.
The traffic in question was a car with four children inside. Two of the youngsters and the driver suffered concussion and other injuries that were sufficient enough to hospitalise them.
Beazley was also taken to Waikato Hospital, where a sample of his blood was taken. It returned a reading of 171 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - well above the legal driving limit of 50mg.
He told the police he was unable to remember the incident.
Judge Tompkins had a victim impact statement from the driver of the other car, who said the crash had a long-lasting and traumatic effect, which had impeded her quality of life significantly.
A pre-sentence report recommended home detention. Beazley’s counsel Alfin Moke sought community detention and intensive supervision.
Beazley was employed by his local marae to provide at-home childcare services, and he also had care of his young daughter - and thus needed to maintain an income to provide for her, Moke said.
His client was extremely remorseful and had embarked on “a vigorous journey of rehabilitation” which included partaking in the Right Track and Street Talk driver education programmes.
Beazley had also partaken in a restorative justice conference with his victim, where “a robust discussion took place”.
His victims’ “health and wellbeing had weighed heavily on his mind” since that day, Moke said.