Kelly Hodel/Stuff
Rohan Bignell was stopped by a security guard as he pulled out of the Center Place parking lot on the morning of June 1, 2019, after being deemed intoxicated.
A Hamilton man who went over the legal drink limit in a city car park has appealed his conviction, alleging his offense did not actually occur on a public highway.
However, Rohan Leith Bignell failed in his bid to have both his conviction and sentence overturned after a Supreme Court judge ruled that even though it was 3am and the car park was only ticket holders, it was still a place where the public has access to.
It was just after 3am on Saturday, June 1, 2019 when Bignell was spotted by a security guard in the car park, returning to collect his car.
The guard judged him drunk, took his ticket from him and alerted the police.
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An officer arrived at 3:25 a.m. just as Bignell backed his car off the lowered barrier and back into the parking lot.
Noticing that Bignell was showing “the signs of recent alcohol use,” she then performed a breath test and blood sampling procedure.
On later analysis, Bignell – who said he had tried to reach Mahoe St – was found to have 107 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood in his system.
Kelly Hodel/Stuff
Shortly after the 3am incident, police were called to the Center Place car park.
The legal driving limit is 50 milligrams.
The drunk driving charge was filed in its aggravated form – meaning Bignell had at least two previous such convictions.
Despite this, he pleaded not guilty to the charges and went to trial. He contested the charge on two grounds: first, that his right to legal advice had been breached, and second, that he had not driven on “a road” as specified in the Land Transport Act 1998.
In a reserved decision issued last May, Judge Brett Crowley ruled in his favour. He fined Bignell $500, disqualified him from driving for a year and a day, and ordered him to pay $192 in blood analysis and medical expenses.
Through his counsel Alastair Haskett, Bignell appealed, on the grounds that Judge Crowley erred in ruling that the parking lot was a public “way”.
The appeal was heard on February 2 by Justice Kiri Tahana at the Supreme Court in Hamilton. While the appeal was being reviewed, Bignell’s disqualification was suspended.
Haskett argued that the police prosecutors could not have proved conclusively that there was public access to the parking lot at that time of night because access was restricted by a gate and security guards.
Access was only for permit holders – people with a ticket – and therefore the parking lot was not a “public” space.
But in a verdict released Friday, Judge Tahana rejected the appeal and upheld the verdict.
“If anyone is willing to pay the parking fee, everyone is invited to use the parking lot,” the judge wrote.
“It is very clearly a place that is open to the public and falls safely within the definition of ‘road’ in the Land Transport Act.”
The late night restrictions have not changed that, she said.
“It would be an absurd outcome if temporary changes to the access rules changed a place from being a ‘road’ at one time of the day, but not at another.
“It would be too narrow an interpretation of ‘public’ to state that Mr Bignell was a permit holder at night but a member of the public during the day simply because night access was restricted to ticket holders.