QLD: Longer sentence for drink driver

AAP General News (Australia)
08-17-1999
QLD: Longer sentence for drink driver

By Suzanne Klotz

BRISBANE, Aug 17 AAP - A drunken and speeding driver who seriously injured his friend while
on bail for drink driving had his sentence increased by the Queensland Court of Appeal today.

James William Purcell, 24, of Blackwater, central Queensland, was sentenced in the
Rockhampton District Court in May to two years' jail with a recommendation for early parole
after six months, and disqualified from driving for two and a half years.

He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm on January 30 this
year.

The Attorney-General appealed the sentence on the basis it was manifestly inadequate.

Purcell had left Blackwater with his 19-year-old motor mechanic friend and driven to the
central Queensland city of Rockhampton, where they drank at the Savoy Hotel for four hours.

By the time he left his family's home at 8.30pm it was against his step-mother's wishes
because he was still seriously drunk.

Purcell was driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.174, which is more than three
times the legal limit, and speeding at 100 kph.

He went through a red light and the vehicle became airborne, nose-diving into a railway
line at the Peter Street and Lakes Creek Road intersection in Rockhampton.

His friend, who was in the passenger seat, was thrown through the windscreen and fractured
his jaw, tibia, fibula, ankle and toes, and tore tendons and muscles.

At the time Purcell was on bail for driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.103 on
November 29, last year.

In a joint judgment, Court of Appeal president Margaret McMurdo and Justice James Thomas
found the sentence was not severe enough.

"We are finally persuaded that the sentence imposed was manifestly inadequate in the
circumstances," they wrote.

"It does not sufficiently condemn the seriousness of the respondent's behaviour in driving
a motor vehicle dangerously and causing grievous bodily harm whilst adversely affected by
alcohol, especially in the circumstances where he had been charged with dangerous driving only
a few months before."

The court sentenced Purcell to three years jail with a recommendation for early release on
parole after 12 months, and disqualified him from driving for three years.

AAP smk/kr

KEYWORD: PURCELL

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