Carter Reidy: Palm Beach labourer guilty of spitting on cops, evading police while drunk and disqualified
A young Gold Coast man who drank two bottles of gin before terrorising a woman, fleeing cops while driving nearly five times the legal limit, and spitting on three officers, has learnt his fate in court.
Police & Courts
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A young Gold Coast man who drank two bottles of gin before terrorising a woman, fleeing cops while driving nearly five times the legal limit, and spitting on three officers after his arrest has learnt his fate in court.
Palm Beach man Carter Jake Reidy, 23, appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on Tuesday via audiovisual link from custody, where he pleaded guilty to eight charges, most seriously three counts of serious assault of a police officer by spitting.
He also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of liquor (i.e. high-range), evading police at night, driving while disqualified by a court order, obstructing police, and aggravated breach of a domestic violence order.
The court heard Reidy had been boozing most of the day at the protected woman’s residence on December 27 last year, drinking two bottles of gin and then some.
About 3.20am on December 28, they had a fight when Reidy called another woman, leading him to kick a hole in her bedroom door, smash a glass vase, and push her, before he decamped in a Range Rover.
Patrolling police later witnessed Reidy’s vehicle driving on Sunshine Blvd at Broadbeach Waters and they activated their lights and sirens, but he evaded them in a southerly direction.
He was arrested at his residence a short time later, where cops noted him to be slurring his words, unsteady on his feet and with bloodshot eyes.
He blew almost five times the legal blood-alcohol limit, 0.235 per cent, and was conveyed to the Southport Police Station, where he called officers “c--ts” repeatedly before spitting on the face of one, the spittle also spraying two others (the court accepted he only meant to spit on the first officer).
He was remanded in custody in advance of his sentence, the first time he had ever been incarcerated, having previously escaped various misdemeanours with fines and good-behaviour bonds.
Defence lawyer Mollie Roper told the court her client, who attended school to Year 11 and worked in hospitality and as a labourer, was struggling with his mother’s terminal illness and had turned to drink to soothe his turbulent mind.
She described his legal woes as being attributable to “one night of some very poor decision-making”.
“He was intoxicated to the extent he has no recollection of the offending conduct,” Ms Roper added.
She said her client planned to go dry upon his release from custody and noted his very early guilty pleas.
Reidy was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment with immediate court-ordered parole, taking into account the 53 days he spent on remand, and disqualified from driving for a minimum of two years.