Drink-driver who hit pedestrian jailed

A man who was drunk when he crashed his car into a pedestrian has been jailed for two years and four months.

Nicholas Edward Catlin, 33, builder, from Britain, earlier admitted drink-driving causing injury to Mitsuko Morisue as well as a charge of fleeing the scene and was sentenced in the Queenstown District Court yesterday.

His 42-year-old victim read a statement outlining the serious brain injury she sustained on March 3 which required about two months in hospital.

Morisue was standing on the corner of Adelaide and Frankton Rd when Catlin’s car, seen ‘‘speeding and swerving’’, mounted the pavement in Stanley St and struck her sending her three to four metres into the air and over the bonnet. She landed about 10m further down the road.

‘‘I have absolutely no recollection of the night I was hit by the car,’’ Morisue told the court amidst tears.

‘‘It took a long time to understand what happened to me. ‘‘The shock still hasn’t worn off.’’ Catlin had been drinking with associates at a bar after consuming six to eight beers at home earlier, the police summary of facts said. He decided to drive home. The car mounted the footpath and continued to where Morisue was standing holding her bicycle talking to her friend.

The impact threw Morisue onto Catlin’s car before she landed about 10 metres away, police said.

A crash investigation put Catlin’s speed at about 74kmh in the 50kmh area. Catlin stopped about 100m up the road, got out of the vehicle smoking a cigarette and staggered backwards before ‘‘decamping’’ into nearby bushes.

Police found Catlin at his home about 11pm where a blood alcohol test put his level at 151 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

Judge Bernadette Farnan jailed Catlin and disqualified him from driving for five years.

He was ordered to pay an emotional harm sum of $2500 and $5000 in reparation.