Not sure about this one

The Herald reports:

A former prominent sportsman has been discharged without conviction for drink driving and granted permanent name suppression. …

The charge arose following a situation last July that the police described as “morning-after driving”.

After Ubering home from a function the night before, the man slept. But when he got up and drove the next morning, he was stopped at a routine traffic stop.

The man gave a blood sample, which returned a blood alcohol level of 135mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal limit is no more than 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

His lawyer, Lucie Scott, made lengthy submissions, outlining the efforts her client had made since the incident and the impact a conviction would have on him and his family.

I have sympathy for the argument that he shouldn’t get a conviction for “morning-after driving”. The argument is you did the right thing by. not driving home, and you just misjudged the impact it would have the next morning.

ChatGPT estimates he would have had 15 or more standard drinks the night before to have that high an alcohol level eight hours later. So you could argue with that many, maybe you should be aware.

But I could go along with him not getting a conviction, but I can’t see why you get name suppression?

But there is a further twist?

Given the sportsman had a 28-day disqualification from driving at the time of the offending the judge declined to further disqualify him, saying he was at a low risk of offending.

This changes things for me. If he was disqualified from driving, then he shouldn’t be driving at all, let alone the morning after a huge drinking session.

Duncan Garner got pinged for totally sober driving because he was five days away from having his licence back from some speeding demerits. Garner got his name prominently splashed over the media.

But this guy not only gets off for driving under the influence while disqualified, he also gets name suppression. It doesn’t seem right.

I note though the Police did not oppose it. So maybe there were special factors here, but overall doesn’t quite seem right.

UPDATE: The article implied the 28 days disqualification was in place at the time of the offending. I am told it wasn’t – it was an automatic disqualification from the offending. So this means he wasn’t driving while disqualified, which does make it less serious. So I’m okay with the lack of conviction, but still think name suppression shouldn’t have occured.