• The defendant pleaded guilty to Driving While Disqualified 3^rd or Subsequent Offence being his third conviction.  The defendant had two previous convictions for driving while suspended for the offence dates of 16 March 2012 and 26 March 2012 for which he was sentenced at the Manukau District Court on 19 April 2012 to 12 months’ disqualification and 100 hours community work.  The only other convictions he had were in 2007 for being an unlicensed driver failing to comply with a prohibition. 

• An Application under section 94 of the Land Transport Act 1998 for community work instead of disqualification was granted by his Honour Judge Wilson QC the defendant was sentenced to 120 hours of community work.  The car was not confisticated. 

• The defendant owed over eleven thousand dollars to a finance company for the vehicle and the finance company did not consent for the vehicle to be sold.  An application was filed under section 129(4) of the Sentencing Act 2002 that extreme hardship would result if the vehicle was confiscated and that it was needed to drive to work and for family purposes.  The vehicle was not confiscated by the court.

• The defendant, Mr M, was aged 24 who lived with his mother and sister who were both in full time employment.  The defendant also had custody of his son aged seven.  The defendant was in full time employment as a tire fitter working Monday to Saturday with 4:00am early morning starts.  There was no public transport to assist the defendant to get to and from work.  The defendant could not afford taxis to and from work for a year and would lose his employment if he could not get to work on time. 

• The defendant’s mother had been driving him to work while he was disqualified which was causing difficulties in the family as she was required to start in her own job at 7:00am.  Consequently, his mother was getting tired and there were sometimes times when she could not take him to work.  The defendant’s sister did not have a driver’s licence.  The defendant drove himself to work while he was disqualified and was pulled over by police driving home from work on a Saturday.

• The defendant also needed to drive to transport his son to school and to take his son to his sporting activities.  The family also needed the defendant to drive for other family purposes such as to take the washing to and from the Laundromat and to uplift his sister from work in the evening as there was no bus to get her from the Otahuhu bus depot to where they lived in Favona at the time she finished work as she missed the last bus to Favona.
   
• Another year of not being able to have a driver’s licence would have resulted in the defendant being terminated from his employment and becoming unemployed.  The defendant had managed to hold on to that job for some years and had no other qualifications.  The defendant would face bankruptcy if he lost his employment as he would not be able to pay his debts he was earning $20.43 per hour but with over time he would generally work more than 57 hours a week and was earning more than $1,000.00 a week.