Lawyer backs down over drink-drive website

A barrister who advertised on his website that he would use "technicalities and loopholes" to get drink-drivers off charges has agreed to remove the page after an outcry from road safety advocates and victims of drink-drive crashes.

Auckland barrister Patrick Winkler – who specialises in defending drink-drive charges – said on his website that the law had become so complex, "the citizen really can't have any idea whether he's `guilty' or not".

"Yet the government, political parties and the police all treat drink drivers as if they have committed something like rape," it read.

The site said the relevant law was "all about technicalities and loopholes" and suggested these may be used to defend cases of driving with excess alcohol levels.

"Accused people really need someone who's going to look after them. That's because the system definitely will not."

The website also featured a photo of Winkler leaning up against a red convertible sports car and the caption below read: "Speedsters – I understand your pain."

But he yesterday agreed to remove the page after Sunday Star-Times inquiries, and apologised for any offence to "bereaved families". "It was never the intention that the website would cause upset and I can see how it could. We don't want people who have suffered major loss to suffer any further."

The tone and language of the web page had upset some who said Winkler was trivialising drink-driving.

Megan McPherson's brother, Jonathan Keogh, 28, was killed in 2006 by a repeat drink-driver on his way home to Christchurch after celebrating Mother's Day with his family.

McPherson is a member of lobby group CrossRoads, a subsidiary of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which advocates tougher penalties for drink-drivers.

She said Winkler's writings reflected the country's attitude to drink-driving. "It is a free country and I actually welcome him speaking like this because it shows how people think... People think it's a game. Drink-driving is not a game.

"There are dozens of innocent New Zealanders killed every year by drunk drivers and there are people ending up in wheelchairs with head injuries. For him to trivialise it and turn it into a game is an abomination. All there is between someone being killed and a drunk driver is three inches of white paint on the road."

Winkler said yesterday the law needed to be reformed to place "far greater emphasis on rehabilitation and far less on revenge and retribution". Any of his clients who have previous drink-drive convictions are compelled to go to alcohol counselling, he said.

"My business is not looking to be flippant in any way. One objective is to rehabilitate offenders because that is going to mean that the client is strong and better equipped to lead a better and productive life."

A small proportion of drink-drive cases every year involved death or injury, he said, and he defended hardly any of those cases.

In 2006 there were about 29,000 convictions for drink-driving; the following year, 120 road deaths, 552 serious injuries and 1720 minor injuries involved alcohol.

"One thing that seems to be forgotten so often is this, the people who end up in ordinary drink-drive cases are hard-working, sometimes own their own business, and they suffer a catastrophic domino effect. They can't drive so they won't be able to work and may default on their mortgage payments. So the whole family suffers and if they are employers, another family may suffer. A guy who assaults someone, who actually hurts someone, he does not lose his house."

Frontline police staff told the Star-Times that Winkler's comments appeared to condone drink-drinking. "Maybe he should be reminded of all the fatals caused by drink driving," said one officer who preferred not to be named.

Nicholas Till QC, of the New Zealand Law Society's ethics council, did not want to comment specifically on Winkler's website but said that a lawyer could advertise that he or she was good at indentifying holes in prosecutions – in fact, the lawyer would have a duty to do so for the client.

- © Fairfax NZ News