After being caught driving while disqualified for the 12th time, a man’s explanation did not exactly help his plight.
Tony Mitchell, a truck driver, of Dunedin, told police he was on his way to get a pie.
In the Dunedin District Court yesterday, Judge John Macdonald called it "one of the less compelling reasons I have heard [for driving while banned]".
The court heard how Mitchell had been convicted of driving while disqualified 11 times between 1987 and 1989.
"Rather miraculously", the judge said, it had been 28 years until the most recent indiscretion on July 21.
Mitchell’s ex-partner had dropped off the children and left the car at his Dunedin home.
There was a torrential rainstorm at the time, defence counsel Chris Lynch explained, and the defendant took the risk of heading to the shop to buy some food.
Mitchell had 15 pages of convictions, Judge Macdonald noted, but the man’s offending had slowed in recent years.
There was an exception though in May, when he was caught for drink-driving and banned from being behind the wheel for a year.
Ms Lynch said the conviction had seen her client lose his job as a truck driver, but his former employer had agreed to reinstate him once his licence was returned.
Because of that incentive, she applied to have Mitchell’s disqualification converted to another sentence.
The judge agreed it was best to have the defendant off the "conveyor belt" of driving offences.
He sentenced Mitchell to 12 months’ intensive supervision and 80 hours’ community work.