Sukhraj Singh (30) appeared in the Dunedin District Court last week where his counsel Simon Graham submitted that the offending was at the low end of the scale and, more importantly, the consequences for his client outweighed the seriousness of the crime.
After a night at the pub on October 16 last year, Singh was caught driving in Ross Pl, Lawrence, and blew a breath-alcohol reading of 653mcg.
His first drink-driving conviction was in 2018 with a blood-alcohol reading of 131mg — a similar level.
The court heard Singh was only intending to move his Mercedes Benz 83m from the Coach and Horses Inn to a "safer spot" at the Four Square supermarket, before taking the courtesy shuttle home.
There was a significantly reduced impact to the public, Mr Graham argued.
The larger issue of the application concerned the consequences to Singh and his wife. His wife was due to apply for a residency visa in a matter of days as she was a graduate medical student and hoped to practice medicine here.
He would be a secondary applicant. If Singh received another conviction, his liability for deportation could be triggered.
His wife would "be placed into a situation where she'd be forced to separate from [him] or return to India with [him]", Community Magistrate Simon Heale said.
If they were to return to India, they would have no family support nor would Singh have the same work prospects in the dairy industry.
The police argued that any potential consequences were simply speculative. Singh would still need to be of good character to be granted the visa and Immigration New Zealand already knew about the charge, the court heard.
Disregarding consequences to Singh, Mr Heale could consider consequences to his wife as she, and her immigration application, could be indirectly affected by a conviction.
Mr Heale subsequently granted the discharge on that basis.
"This is your second incident of driving with excess breath alcohol," said Mr Heale.
"You should assume if there is a third there will not be a discharge without conviction."
Mr Singh was ordered to pay a $1000 donation, and was disqualified for 28 days with alcohol interlock provisions to follow.
