Jail for youth on driving charge

Press, 24 April 1986, Page 17

Jail for youth on driving charge

The trial of a youth whose driving of an unroadworthy car, and while he was disqualified from driving, resulted in the death of a friend ended abruptly in the District Court yesterday morning when the defendant changed his plea to guilty to a fatal driving offence. Later in the day the youth, Douglas James Humphries, aged 18, a labourer of Darfield, appeared for sentence and was jailed for a total of 15 months. He was also disqualified from driving for two years, from yesterday. The prison term of 15 months will be served cumulatively on a similar sentence imposed on Tuesday for unrelated offences. Humphries’ trial, before Judge Fraser and a jury, began on Tuesday on alternative charges of reckless driving, and dangerous driving, causing the death of a passenger, Jeffrey Malcolm Ward, aged 20, on the Main West Road near West Melton on the evening of September 5 last year. Nearing the completion of the Crown’s case yesterday morning Humphries changed his plea to guilty to the charge of dangerous driving causing Mr Ward’s death. The Crown did not then proceed on the charge of reckless driving causing death. Appearing for sentence later in the day, Humphries received a prison sentence of 15 months, and driving disqualification on the fatal driving charge, and a similar concurrent prison sentence and disqualification on a charge of driving while disqualified which he admitted. It was his ninth conviction of driving while disqualified. On related charges of driving without a warrant of fitness for his vehicle, and with insufficient tyre tread, he was discharged without conviction. Evidence in the trial on the fatal driving counts had been that after driving to about one metre from the rear of a car which had overtaken his shortly before, Humphries’ car collided with the other. Both cars went off the road and Hum-

phries’ car went through several fences into a paddock. Mr Ward, a passenger in the front seat, was killed when his head was impaled by a wooden fence post which splintered and went through the windscreen. Imposing sentence, the Judge said Humphries appeared to have been annoyed at being overtaken by another car. In that frame of mind he drove far too close to it for the speed at which he was travelling, when about to overtake it. Humphries’ car had been “written off the road,” because of its unroadworthiness, shortly before Humphries purchased it. Also he had been drinking that evening, before driving. Before the accident he had driven his car largely if not almost wholly, on his incorrect side of the road and an oncoming motorist had had to drive off the road to avoid a collision. In all the circumstances the only adequate and appropriate penalty was a prison sentence, cumulative on the term imposed on Tuesday for unrelated matters, the Judge said. Dr W. G. G. A. Young, who appeared with Mr L. J. H. Hemsley, for Humphries, submitted in mitigation of penalty, that Humphries had had to face the fact that he had caused the death of his best friend. He was very conscious of this. Dr Young referred to Humphries’ very difficult background, and said he acknowledged having driven dangerously because of his negligence in knowing the brakes were defective, and not continuing to check the brake fluid level. Mr D. J. L. Saunders, who appeared for the Crown, said the Crown could not prove that Humphries tried to ram the other vehicle. However, he had been shown to have been very angry at the other car overtaking his, and had attempted to overtake it in turn, knowing his car was in an unroadworthy condition. Mr Saunders said the current disqualified driving offence was Humphries’s ninth. He sought an additional prison term to mark the Court’s disapproval of the offending.