Counsel for the Queenstown woman responsible for the death of a teenager in a 2020 car crash says conditions applied to her home detention sentence were neither necessary nor legally justified.
Speaking at an appeal hearing in the High Court at Christchurch yesterday, Kerry Cook said the conditions resulted in an "erroneous sentence" for his client, Tully Robinson (22).
Robinson was sentenced by Judge John Brandts-Giesen in the Queenstown District Court in December to four and a-half months’ home detention, banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to pay $35,000 in reparation.
She had admitted charges of aggravated careless driving causing the death of Allanah Walker and aggravated careless driving causing injury to Astin Caldwell on August 22, 2020, near Arrowtown.
She had been speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road and texting while driving in the moments before the head-on crash.
Mr Cook said the appeal related only to special conditions applying during the detention period, and post-detention conditions.
They included having to attend a drug and alcohol assessment and completing counselling or treatment recommended by a probation officer.
The statutory test for imposing such conditions, which included there being a "significant risk" of further offending, had not been met, he said.
Robinson had clean criminal and driving demerit records, was a member of a "pro-social family", and had attended a restorative justice conference with Mr Caldwell.
She had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, and references provided to the court showed the offending was out of character.
Alcohol was not considered a causative factor in the crash, and there was no evidence she had an issue with alcohol.
The post-detention conditions, which effectively lengthened the term of the sentence, were unnecessary for the same reasons.
The transcript of her meeting with Mr Caldwell demonstrated her "genuine remorse and a deep understanding" of the suffering her actions had caused.
"That is not someone who needs the imposition of conditions over and above the ordinary."
Crown counsel Riki Donnelly said Judge Brandts-Giesen had received a pre-sentence report recommending special conditions be imposed.
It referred to factors such as Robinson’s "complacency of attitude" to driving while influenced by alcohol.
The 18-month driving suspension was only a short-term protective measure, Mr Donnelly said.
"We’re not talking about punishment, we’re talking about providing the appellant with the tools necessary to address one of the offending-related factors."
Justice Robert Osborne reserved his decision.
