Keepa v Police - [2025] NZSC 139

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

I TE KŌTI MANA NUI O AOTEAROA

SC 80/2025
[2025] NZSC 139

BETWEEN	PETER MATEHAERE KEEPA Applicant
AND	NEW ZEALAND POLICE Respondent

SC 84/2025
BETWEEN	KIRIWAI TAHAU Applicant
AND	NEW ZEALAND POLICE Respondent

Court:	Glazebrook, Ellen France and Miller JJ
Counsel:	K H Cook and H C Coutts for Applicant in SC 80/2025 N P Chisnall KC and H V Bennett for Applicant in SC 84/2025 R K Thomson and M J R Blaschke for Respondent
Judgment:	16 October 2025

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The applications for leave to appeal are dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS

This judgment responds to two applications for leave to appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Tahau v New Zealand Police.[1]
[1]Tahau v New Zealand Police [2025] NZCA 278, [2025] 3 NZLR 1 (French P, Thomas and Campbell JJ) [CA judgment].
The proposed appeals concern s 81(1) of the Land Transport Act 1998, which relevantly provides that if any provision of the Act requires a court to disqualify a person from driving for a period not less than a specified minimum, the court must so order “unless for special reasons relating to the offence it thinks fit to order otherwise”.[2]
[2]The exception is s 63, and s 81 is subject to s 94.
Each of the applicants appeared separately in the District Court on 27 February 2024 for sentence on a charge of driving with excess alcohol, contrary to s 56 of the Act.[3] Because these were third or subsequent offences for both of them, the court was required to order that they be disqualified from driving for more than one year.[4]
[3]New Zealand Police v Keepa [2024] NZDC 7953 (Judge Wills); and New Zealand Police v Tahau [2024] NZDC 4570 (Judge Wills). See Land Transport Act 1998, s 56(1) and (2).
[4]Section 56(4).
Each of the applicants had a number of convictions (12 in Mr Keepa’s case, and five in Ms Tahau’s) for the same offence. In each case, there had been a long period of more than a decade since their last offence. For that reason, Judge Wills treated them as first offenders and imposed disqualifications of six months, the minimum for a first offender, relying on s 81(1).[5]
[5]In Ms Tahau’s case the Judge instead cited s 85. The High Court and Court of Appeal found that s 85 could not be employed in that way. The High Court was uncertain whether the Judge intended to invoke s 81 instead; the Court of Appeal found that the Judge did: New Zealand Police v Piripi (aka Phillips) [2024] NZHC 2596 (Harland J) [HC judgment] at [93] and [98]; and CA judgment, above n 1, at [20]. We do not understand Ms Tahau to contest that latter finding in this Court.
The Judge also backdated the commencement of the disqualification imposed on a third offender, Kohu Piripi, so that he could apply at once for a limited licence.[6] The Judge must…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Keepa v Police

Details

AGLC: Keepa v Police [2025] NZSC 139
Case: [2025] NZSC 139
Decision Date: 16 October 2025

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Supreme Court of New Zealand, two applications for leave to appeal were brought by Peter Matehaere Keepa and Kiriwai Tahau against the New Zealand Police. The applicants sought to challenge the Court of Appeal's decision in Tahau v New Zealand Police, which found that the District Court did not have the discretion to treat the applicants as first offenders when imposing a disqualification from driving due to a long temporal gap in their previous convictions for driving with excess alcohol. The applicants argued that the temporal gap constituted special reasons under s 81(1) of the Land Transport Act 1998, and that the District Court had the power to backdate the commencement of the disqualification period under s 85 of the Act.

The court was required to decide whether the applicants had demonstrated sufficient prospects of success on the proposed grounds of appeal. These grounds included whether the High Court had jurisdiction to entertain the Police's appeal, whether a temporal gap in offending could amount to special reasons under s 81(1), whether a court could backdate the commencement of disqualification for a variety of reasons, and whether the imposition of a longer period of disqualification after the original period had expired was a miscarriage of justice.

The Supreme Court found that the Court of Appeal's reasoning was sound, and that the applicants' proposed grounds of appeal had insufficient prospects of success. The court held that the distinction between reasons relating to the offence and reasons relating to the offender was well-established and adopted by the Land Transport Act. It also found that the applicants' argument regarding the power to backdate the commencement of disqualification was too broadly framed and did not have sufficient prospects of success. The court concluded that there was no appearance of a miscarriage of justice in the Court of Appeal's decision, as it had only increased the sentence to the minimum required by the legislation.

The applications for leave to appeal were dismissed, and no further appeal will be permitted.

Orders