8 Aug 2014

Judge condemns game of road 'chicken'

8:34 pm on 8 August 2014

A Kapiti Coast driver who seriously injured a friend while playing chicken with a group of pedestrians has been sentenced to five months community detention and must pay $7000 in reparations.

In 2012, Jordan Holmes, who is 21, drove directly at a group of four friends at about 60 kilometres an hour and hit one of them.

The victim suffered a fractured skull, jaw, wrist and two broken legs.

In sentencing at the Wellington District Court, Judge Bruce Davidson said Holmes showed little remorse and did not accept responsibility until after he was convicted of dangerous driving causing injury.

"Put bluntly, you should have either stopped or slowed down dramatically," he said. "You had no real way of knowing or predicting how your friends on the roadway would react. One of them stepped the wrong way with a terrible outcome."

Holmes was also disqualified from driving for 16 months and ordered to complete 20 hours community work.