W v Police HC Auckland CRI 2007-404-84

[2007] NZHC 1861

This case has been anonymized

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

CRI 2007-404-84

W

Appellant

v

NEW ZEALAND POLICE

Respondent

Hearing:         18 June 2007

Appearances: Appellant in person

L M Hamilton for Respondent

Judgment:      18 June 2007

JUDGMENT OF KEANE J

Solicitors:

Crown Solicitor, Auckland

W V POLICE HC AK CRI 2007-404-84  18 June 2007

[1]      On 6 March 2007 two Justices of the Peace found W  , then a taxi driver, culpable of an infringement offence on 10 June 2006. At 3.10 am that day, they found, he had driven his taxi at a speed exceeding 50 kilometres per hour down Onewa Road, Birkenhead. His speed, they found, fixed by speed camera, was 61 kilometres per hour. He was fined $80 and directed to pay costs.

[2]      At the hearing Mr W    did not dispute that  he was the driver. He  did dispute that he drove at the speed registered by the camera. At that time, he said, he was highly conscious that he was passing a speed camera. He had passed it two or three times at least that night. The camera was triggered, his position was, by a boy racer travelling in the opposite direction. He had said that in a letter immediately he received the infringement notice.

[3]      The Justices held that Mr W  ’s speed had been correctly registered by the camera. The camera, a static camera, which monitors speed relying on sensors set in the lanes being monitored, was supported, as the sensors were, by certificates of accuracy. That, as the Justices held, meant that all were deemed to be accurate in the absence of proof to the contrary. Mr W  , the Justices concluded, had not displaced the presumption of accuracy. In his evidence he had asserted, as I have said, that the camera must have been triggered by the boy racer but in law that was not enough.

[4]      On  this  appeal  Mr  W  ,  who  represents  himself,  as  he  did  before  the Justices, has said, and I accept said with absolute sincerity, that he was travelling within the speed limit at the point of the camera. He maintains that the camera must have been triggered by the boy racer whose car one can see in the image taken by the camera. He is clear in his own mind that the camera must have been incorrectly set up or it must have malfunctioned.

[5]      The difficulty that Mr W   faces on this appeal, as I have explained to him, is that the law supports the accuracy of the equipment by which his speed was fixed by a comprehensive series of presumptions.

[6]      First, the image expressing the speed at which Mr W   was travelling is deemed, in the absence of proof to the contrary, to be sufficient evidence of the date,

the time, the place and the motor vehicle and speed: s 145(1) Land Transport Act

1998. Secondly, the equipment itself is deemed to be approved vehicle surveillance equipment for that purpose: s 145(2). And this particular equipment was approved by the Transport Approved Vehicle Surveillance Equipment Notice 1994. Thirdly, that equipment, and this is the focus of the decision of the Justices, is deemed to have been accurate if supported by certificates of accuracy and, as I have said, there were those certificates produced at the hearing.

[7]      The cumulative effect of those presumptions, and there are others, is that, as the Justices held, Mr W   must be deemed to have been travelling at 61 kilometres per hour on 10 June 2006 at 3.10 am, even though there was another car caught in the same image. The registration of the car he is driving is registered in the image, not that of the other car, even though the number plate of the other car has been deleted to protect the privacy of the other driver.

[8]      I see no error therefore, in the Justices conclusion that it is Mr W   himself, who must be fixed with having travelled at that speed, and I see no alternative, although I understand how strongly Mr W   feels about this issue, but to dismiss

his appeal.

P.J. Keane  J