Failure to pass driving test ends in assault

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 5

Failure to pass driving test ends in assault

PA Auckland A woman punched a traffic officer in the face and threw papers across his office when she was told that she had failed part of a driving test, the North Shore District Court was told. Before Judge Murray, the

woman, Susan Ann Veldt, aged 22, unemployed, of Glenfield, Auckland, pleaded guilty to a charge of assaulting a traffic officer, Peter Raymond Pritchard, on March 20. The police prosecutor, Sergeant Paul Major, told the Court that Veldt had been at the Takapuna office of the Ministry of Transport when she was told that she had failed the written part of her driver’s licence examination. Veldt had become irate and argued with a traffic officer over the result before she picked up a pile of papers and threw them across the room, Sergeant Major said. She had punched an officer in the face and had to be restrained by another officer. Defence counsel, Mr P. J. O’Toole, said that Veldt admitted throwing the papers but denied deliberately punching the traffic officer. The Judge released Veldt and told her that if she had paid $65 to the Court by May 14 he would discharge her without conviction.