A Queenstown woman responsible for the death of a teenager in a 2020 car crash has successfully appealed aspects of her sentence in the High Court.
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.
However, after a hearing in the High Court at Christchurch on February 22, Justice Robert Osborne yesterday quashed special conditions applying to her home detention and for six months afterwards.
They were a requirement to have a drug and alcohol assessment, and to complete any counselling or programme recommended as a result.
Counsel Kerry Cook successfully argued the statutory test for imposing such conditions, which includes there being a significant risk of further offending, had not been met.
Alcohol was not a causative factor in the crash, and there was no evidence she had an issue with alcohol, Mr Cook said.
The post-detention conditions were unnecessary for the same reasons, and were a barrier to Robinson returning to her home in Australia.
Justice Osborne agreed with Mr Cook there was no evidence of a significant risk of further offending given Robinson’s "pro-social record, her lack of previous convictions, her demonstrated remorse, including participation in restorative justice, and the fact the evidence did not suggest alcohol use or abuse was an ongoing issue for her".
It was not sufficient that special conditions had been recommended in a pre-sentence report.
For the same reason, he had no power to impose a special post-detention condition, Justice Osborne said.
Justice Osborne also agreed with submissions by Mr Cook and Crown counsel Riki Donnelly there was no evidence that judicial monitoring of her sentence was necessary.
Instead, the evidence pointed towards Robinson being compliant with the sentence, and he ordered that judicial monitoring be quashed.
Robinson had been speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road and texting in the moments before the head-on crash in Malaghans Rd, near Millbrook Resort.
A blood-alcohol test gave a result of 59mg, above the legal driving limit of 50mg, although police did not charge her with drink-driving.
At the time of the crash, she was visiting her family during a break from university studies in Sydney.
