Man jailed over driving offences

In 2019, Joshua John Chellew, 36, was sentenced to 4 months’ dwelling detention for the 2018 hit-and-run loss of life of Zara Blackie on State Freeway 1 in Oamaru.

On the evening Zara died, Chellew had been at his Oamaru handle socialising and consuming with pals.

A police abstract of details mentioned the lady tripped or stumbled into the trail of the oncoming automobile and the driving force was unable to keep away from hitting her.

Whereas Chellew slowed momentarily, he sped away in a southbound route, earlier than handing himself in to police the following morning.

Chellew was convicted of failing to cease to establish damage. Decide Joanna Maze mentioned the accident “occurred so shortly that [Chellew] had virtually no alternative to reply within the explicit circumstances”.

Since then, Chellew has continued to search out himself in hassle for his driving.

He prevented jail once more in 2021 after he accelerated away from police, reaching speeds of as much as 130kmh.

The court docket heard that Chellew and his passenger threw bottles, items of wooden and different gadgets on the following police automobile earlier than trying to ram it.

When the pursuit got here to an finish, the defendant punched the arresting officer and grabbed him across the throat.

He squeezed the officer’s neck and genitals and jumped on prime of the police automobile. It took two officers to arrest him.

Final yr, Chellew was nonetheless accumulating driving offences and on September 3, was pulled over by police.

Whereas he initially co-operated, he grew to become argumentative upon being knowledgeable he was underneath arrest.

As he resisted the officer, he referred to as her a “Nazi” and threatened to render her unconscious.

The officer was in a position to place one handcuff on Chellew however he wrenched his arm away, earlier than fleeing the scene in his automobile with {the handcuffs} nonetheless connected to his wrist.

“I’ll minimize to the chase,” Decide Campbell Savage mentioned within the Oamaru District Court docket final week.

“You threatened to do grievous bodily hurt to a police officer. That’s the most critical cost you might be going through.”

Chellew was apprehended and granted electronically monitored bail on November 29.

Two weeks later he used a handheld energy device to noticed off his ankle bracelet.

When the defendant was lastly tracked down he absconded once more, leaping over a fence to flee from police.

The defendant accrued seven expenses in whole, together with wilful harm of the GPS bracelet price $1200.

Final week, Chellew was sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment and disqualified from driving for an extra two years.

Counsel Emma Middlemass requested for permission to use for dwelling detention, however Decide Savage was fast to show down the request.

“Not after you used an angle grinder to chop off your final bracelet. No.”

erin.cox@odt.co.nz