Tayla Hider: Gold Coast real estate agent guilty of drink driving, damaging hotel elevator

A Gold Coast realtor has admitted to damaging property at Hilton Surfers Paradise and driving while more than twice the legal blood-alcohol limit in the wake of a messy break up.

Gold Coast realtor Tayla Jade Hider, 26. Picture: Hartshorn Property

A young Gold Coast real estate agent ripped an emergency phone from an elevator at a ritzy Surfers Paradise hotel then got busted driving more than twice the legal blood-alcohol limit while exiting the car park, a court has heard.

Tayla Jade Hider, 26, a licensed agent with Hartshorn Property, appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where she pleaded guilty to charges of driving while over the middle alcohol limit and wilful damage.

The wilful damage occurred earlier this month on the evening of February 8 when she damaged an emergency phone belonging to Hilton Surfers Paradise.

Gold Coast realtor Tayla Jade Hider, 26. Picture: REA Group

The court was told Hider threw the phone out the elevator doors, then grabbed and pulled it around the corner until the cabling was wrenched from the wall.

The following morning, February 9, hotel security informed police the defendant was leaving the on-site car park, and she was intercepted.

Officers formed the belief she had been consuming alcohol and performed a breath test, which returned a reading of 0.132 per cent blood-alcohol content – more than two-and-a-half times the legal limit.

Hilton Surfers Paradise on Orchid Ave, where Hider damaged an elevator’s emergency phone. Picture: File

Defence lawyer Cade Banditt told the court his client had broken up with her boyfriend the day prior to the offending and “wasn’t of a right frame of mind”.

He said his client acknowledged she had placed her career and the community at risk due to her actions, and had taken responsibility by entering a very early guilty plea and completing the Queensland Traffic Offenders Program.

Mr Banditt further highlighted his client’s total lack of prior offending.

Magistrate Steve Wettenhall fined Hider $900 and disqualified her from driving for four months, but did not record any convictions, on the basis it would place her real estate licence at risk.