Power and Water ‘safety officer’ blamed wife for writing off company car

A FORMER Power and Water ‘safety officer’ who wrote off a company car and tried to blame his wife for the crash has been handed a 12-month good behaviour bond

Neil Connor, 42, was handed a good behaviour bond in the Darwin Local Court (Stock image)

A FORMER Power and Water “safety officer” who wrote off a company car and tried to blame his wife for the crash has been handed a 12-month good behaviour bond.

Neil Connor, 42, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court on Thursday to driving without due care, leaving the scene of a crash and failing to report it to police after running off the road on March 7.

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Prosecutor Kelsey Argue said Connor was driving his work Outlander on the Stuart Hwy at about 1.45am when he failed to negotiate the bend at the Bagot Rd flyover, mounting the kerb and hitting a street sign.

Ms Kelsey said a witness called triple-0 and reported Connor driving off without stopping, “saying the vehicle was swerving all over the road”.

She said Connor reported the crash to his work on the following Monday and completed a crash report in which he falsely stated his wife was responsible for crashing the vehicle.

Connor’s lawyer, Matt Hubber, said his client had been at home in bed on the night when his wife rang and asked him to pick her up from a work function.

“He picked her up, they were driving home, she was ill in the car, he thought she was going to vomit out the window, there was some to-ing and fro-ing and he says that he failed to concentrate or exercise the requisite level of concentration which caused his vehicle to lose traction in the rain going around that bend,” he said.

“He wasn’t aware that he needed to report the accident. It was a minor, single car accident. Unfortunately for him and Power and Water it caused quite a lot of damage to the car — it wrote the car off.”

Mr Hubber said Connor “panicked and blamed his wife” for the crash and as a result had now lost his job and asked judge Alan Woodcock to consider allowing him to keep his licence as losing it would be “catastrophic” for him.

“What was essentially a regulation accident has been a life changing disaster for him,” he said.

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Mr Woodcock said despite Connor’s “concerning behaviour” he would deal with the matter via a good behaviour bond.

“In the circumstances I decline to disqualify your licence,” he said.