Coffs Harbour high school teacher Kyle MacDonald disqualified for high range drink driving
A Coffs Harbour teacher’s booze-fuelled drive to retrieve a lost mobile phone has ended in a high-range drink driving charge. See the court outcome.
Coffs Harbour
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A high school teacher and mobile tutor was caught high range drink driving and narrowly avoiding hitting a guard rail and vehicle.
The details of the terrifying near miss on May 24, 2025, were revealed at Coffs Harbour Local Court before Magistrate Theresa Hamilton on Wednesday.
After ‘reluctantly’ attending a 40th birthday bash, Kyle MacDonald, 40, got behind the wheel to go and find his lost mobile phone, when he blew a blood alcohol reading of 0.2.
“He was swerving all over the road,” Ms Hamilton told the court.
“He nearly collided with a rail and a vehicle.”
Court documents stated MacDonald had been drinking before and after the birthday before making the booze-fuelled drive that put lives at risk.
His defence lawyer Todd Ritchie conceded that MacDonald’s driving “clearly exposed others to risk”.
He asked Ms Hamilton to “sentence on what occurred and not what could have occurred”.
Mr Ritchie told the court the father of two had no criminal history, had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity by attending Woolgoolga police station and “has not drunk alcohol since”.
Ms Hamilton noted MacDonald had also attended counselling since the offence.
“I note he is otherwise a person of good character regarded well in the community and by his employer,” she said before sentencing.
Ms Hamilton convicted MacDonald and sentenced him to an 18 month community corrections order.
She also fined him $500 and disqualified him from driving for six months.
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