‘Promising soldier’ clocked at 202km/h on Tiger Brennan Dr avoids conviction

A DARWIN soldier clocked speeding at 202km/h in a 100km/h zone on his CBR1000 motorbike in Hidden Valley has avoided a conviction in the Darwin Local Court.

A Honda CBR1000 similar to the one Hayden Vass was riding when he was clocked at 202km/h in August.

A DARWIN soldier clocked speeding at 202km/h in a 100km/h zone on his CBR1000 motorbike in Hidden Valley has avoided a conviction in the Darwin Local Court.

Australian Army corporal Hayden Vass, 29, pleaded guilty to speeding after hitting the “extremely dangerous speed” on Tiger Brennan Drive at about midday on August 16.

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In arguing for no conviction to be recorded, Vass’s lawyer Mary Chalmers argued her client was “a good citizen and a promising soldier” who had “stuffed up briefly on one occasion”.

Ms Chalmers said Vass was riding home to Palmerston with a friend on another bike when he “quote unquote ‘pinned it’ for a couple of seconds to catch up to his friend”.

“Unluckily for him he went right past a speed trap and of course was clocked at the speed to which he’s pleaded guilty — that’s no excuse but it’s not sustained offending,” she said.

“He knows that 202km/h is a very dangerous speed, hence the reason why he’s been charged but it was not, in our submission, an overly serious example of this serious speeding offence.”

Ms Chalmers said Vass had already suffered as a result of the offending after NT Police issued a press release about the incident and he “had the misfortune that it was reported substantially across all media”.

She said while the release didn’t name Vass, “when you combine the smallish defence force community with the particulars that were put into the article, everyone knew it was him”.

“When he spoke to his father about the incident for example — bearing in mind his father lives in Queensland — before he’d said too much his father said ‘Oh I heard about that on the radio’,” she said.

“The impact that has had has really caused him to take the incident to heart, he went and sold his motorbike as a result of the feelings of guilt and remorse that arose.”

In fining Vass $2000 without recording a conviction and disqualifying him from driving for three months, Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris said she accepted the offending was “a momentary thing”.

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“It was on that particular stretch of road, you hadn’t, for example, been going that fast as you had come out of town and you were seeking to catch up with a friend who was also on a motorbike,” she said.

“I also note that you’ve now sold your motorbike so the risk of you reoffending is very low.”

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