Coming across a caravan when driving a ute in Leckhampton Court, Nigel Gordon Chang attached the caravan to the ute’s tow bar and drove off.
Soon after, driving up steep and narrow Morrison St, Chang noticed it was a dead-end street and tried to reverse the ute and caravan back down.
In doing so, he hit small a wooden fence and numerous rubbish bins out for collection, resulting in significant damage to the caravan and minor damage to the fence. Still trying to reverse down the street when police arrived, he narrowly missed colliding with their car.
He admitted having taken his methadone medication about 40 minutes earlier and said he was picking up a caravan on the request of a friend.
But he was unable to provide any details of the friend, police documents said.
Chang, 53, arborist, of Dunedin, was for convicted of unlawfully taking the caravan and driving under the influence of a drug, on February 29.
However, he was also being dealt with on charges from two other incidents — drug-driving (his blood specimen contained methamphetamine, methadone and THC), and dangerous driving, on the Winchester-Orari highway on October 23 last year; and driving while forbidden, and resisting a constable, in Green Island, on January 18 this year.
Appearing before Judge David Robinson in the Dunedin District Court last week, Chang was sentenced to 15 months’ jail (with leave to apply for substitution of sentence) and disqualified from driving for 15 months.
