Drink-driver loses appeal, will be deported after jail

Sahil Shetty (26) will be deported to India once his prison term ends. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Sahil Shetty (26) will be deported to India once his prison term ends. PHOTO: ODT FILES
A Queenstown man who abandoned his severely-injured girlfriend following an alcohol-fuelled car wreck has had his appeal knocked back.

Sahil Sudhir Shetty (26) was jailed for 16 months and banned from driving for four years in the Queenstown District Court in December, after pleading guilty to careless driving causing injury while under the influence of alcohol.

His then girlfriend, a German tourist, suffered severe injuries in the incident and was left at the scene of the crash for more than six hours while the Indian national made his way home to Arrowtown.

He appealed the sentence to the High Court at Invercargill, arguing the punishment was manifestly excessive.

Defence counsel Bryony Shackell said though Shetty did not have a home-detention address currently available, he should be given leave of the court to convert the sentence if one cropped up.

She said her client should have received more credit for remorse.

Justice Robert Osborne dismissed the appeal

‘‘Judge [Bernadette Farnan] assessed that Mr Shetty had not fully comprehended the gravity of either what he had done to the victim or the situation in which he had placed himself. That conclusion was open to her Honour,’’ he said.

Shetty and the victim were drinking in downtown bars until about 3.45am on March 13 last year.

Later, the defendant — travelling as fast as 72kmh — failed to negotiate a slight right-hand bend in Gorge Rd, veered across the centre line and over a bank.

The Honda Odyssey became wedged between the embankment and a back wall of the Gorge Road Retail Centre.

Shetty, whose blood was found inside the wreckage, walked back to town and hitched a ride home as his then partner lay there.

He called her phone later that evening.

The woman could move her limbs but was unable to communicate, the court heard.

An ambulance was called only when someone found her beside the vehicle at 10.20am.

The victim was placed in an induced coma, underwent emergency surgery and spent 26 days in the intensive care unit.

It was a month before she was able to speak again.

Justice Osborne said the woman had subsequently returned to Germany where she had spent more time in hospital.

Five months after the crash, her mother said, she was still suffering short-term memory issues, had no feeling in two fingers in one hand, and still had a broken collar bone and torn ligaments which were deemed inoperable.

In an affidavit, Shetty sought to distance himself from the abandonment of the victim.

He said he remembered waking up on the side of the road and wondered if someone had beaten him up.

He looked for the victim but could not see her ‘‘so assumed she must have gone home without him’’.

Justice Osborne said the prison sentence was not manifestly excessive.

‘‘The combination of factors present in this case, including the gravity of injuries suffered by the victim, the failure of Mr Shetty to make inquiries or a report, and the initial decision of Mr Shetty to drive when he did, at the time he did, aware that he had been drinking, justified the period of imprisonment arrived at as an end sentence.’’

Shetty will be deported once his sentence ends.

rob.kidd@odt.co.nz

 

 

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