No-nonsense approach by visiting judge
A judge visiting from Dunedin, District Court Judge Stephen Coyle, set out a no-nonsense approach to the sentences he was imposing in one of Christchurch’s police courts.
He told a man caught driving while disqualified who said he had set about driving because he missed his daughter and wanted to go see her:
“Sentences in this court are not supposed to be a walk in the park. They are meant to bite – that’s the whole point. If it impacts on you in a way you don’t like, welcome to the reality of criminal sentencing.”
He told a woman who admitted drink-driving with a level of 1063mcg of alcohol to a litre of breath that he was gobsmacked that she had gone driving in that state with her six-year-old child in her car. She got 10 months of disqualification and 120 hours of community work.
He remanded a man in custody until the afternoon after he turned up late for court, when an arrest warrant had already been issued. He would spend a few hours in a cell while his defence counsel was informed and got to the Court House.
Category: Observations
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