A 35-year-old man charged with multiple driving offences – all less than a year after avoiding a criminal conviction for another incident – was sentenced in Mudgee Local Court.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Nathan Joseph Dowler of Gladstone Street, Mudgee, was disqualified for six months and fined $110.
Dowler was charged with driving with an illicit drug present in his blood after testing positive to methamphetamine when he was stopped for random breath and drug tests on the evening of June 18, 2018, in Douro Street. He charged with a second time less than two months later on August 9, 2018, when he again tested positive to the same drug in Putta Bucca Road.
On November 1, Dowler was charged with driving with an expired licence after being stopped in Horatio Street for a random breath test. When asked to produce his licence he admitted it was expired and said “but I have a new one on the way”, officers checked his details which showed it expired on October 13 and that he wasn’t allowed to drive until it was validated.
These offences put Dowler in breach of a good behaviour bond that he’d been placed on - without a criminal conviction being recorded - in December last year, for a charge of driving while disqualified. He was re-sentenced for this matter, this time he was convicted and disqualified from driving for three months.
Magistrate David Day asked the defendant, “they would’ve told you what it was positive for [in June], so why were you driving with methamphetamine in your system again in August? All while you were on a good behaviour bond”.
In noting his place of work his Honour continued, “that’s on the river-flat isn’t it? And you’ve got a bike, good thing it’s flat.”
