Slow down on sharp bends
So much lying in one little article…
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard’s dogged fight to keep her name out of the media
His. His name. He’s a man.
Olympic weightlifting hopeful Laurel Hubbard has failed in a nine-month battle to keep
hername secret over a driving charge.Hubbard, 41, a transgender athlete who is trying to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, was charged with careless driving causing injury after
hervehicle fishtailed on a sharp bend near Queenstown on October 24, 2018.
Hercar hit a vehicle carrying an Australian couple in their 60s. The male driver spent nearly two weeks in Dunedin Hospital and needed major spinal surgery on returning to Australia.
His. His name, his vehicle, his car. He was driving his car too fast so he crashed into another car, causing a painful serious injury to another person.
Hubbard, who is the daughter of cereal magnate Dick Hubbard, pleaded guilty in January this year and offered to pay the couple about $13,000 including $1000 for emotional harm.
A trifling amount.
The case could not be reported because Hubbard, represented by lawyer Fiona Guy Kidd QC, successfully applied for suppression orders at each of the five stages of the court process.
Why should he be able to do that?
The High Court in Invercargill this week overturned the suppression orders after an appeal by Stuff.
At sentencing on February 4, Judge Bernadette Farnan discharged Hubbard without conviction noting she was a first offender, the low level nature of the accident, Hubbard’s remorse and the reparation payment. She disqualified her from driving for a month (the normal disqualification is six months) and ordered her to pay about $13,000 to the Australian couple.
What “low level nature”??? Major spinal surgery, two weeks in the hospital? How is that low level? Dangerous driving isn’t a joke.
Are some more equal than others?
So, not defending Hubbard at all, but he was charged with careless driving, which is a lower level offence than dangerous driving. Think of it as being the difference between being unwise, inattentive, or exercising poor judgment, vs driving like a fuckwit [yes, that’s a technical description].
As for the suppression order, those are becoming quite controversial. Lot’s of people apply for them and judges seem generally prepared to grant them at least in the short term. If a judge refuses and Counsel say it will be appealed, the suppression order is automatically in palce until the appeal (and any subsequent higher appeal) is concluded. That can take a long time. There is a real perception that people who have some sort of public profile, even minor celebrity like second rate sports people or reality TV stars, get preferential treatment over suppression orders than the rest of us. Once upon a time suppression orders were designed/used as an emergency method of preventing real harm – often to dependant family or business associates of a charged person and often only for long enough to give those parties time to protect themselves. There is also automatic name suppression for victims of sexual violence, and rarely for perpetrators of sexual offences where naming them would reveal the identity of the victim(s). Victims can apply to the Court to have their own suppression order lifted to allow them to speak publicly.
tl;dr Suppression order are over used and abused.
Either that or the law is a braying donkey. Maybe both.