The single-vehicle crash occurred on Milly Milly Lane, which is located to the northwest of Young in NSW. Photo: Google Maps.
A drunk driver has been found guilty over a single-vehicle car crash outside the NSW town of Young that left his passenger with spinal injuries.
Benjamin Luke Durham, then aged 32, was driving a Toyota LandCruiser on the night of 23 July 2023 when he crashed the car into a tree on Milly Milly Lane in the rural locality of Burrangong.
The car allegedly rolled onto its side and Durham was able to free himself and call for help, while his male passenger was trapped. The passenger was later found to have suffered injuries to his spine.
The first police officer on the scene saw the car in a ditch and thought Durham was affected by alcohol.
He told police he’d been drinking for five hours that afternoon before he had a “full baked dinner”. He also said he’d had “a few drinks”, but when asked how many he responded, “Can’t tell ya”.
After he was arrested, he told police he had consumed five to 10 drinks which were “various sizes of port and beer”. He delivered a breath alcohol analysis of 0.164 an hour after the crash, then a blood alcohol concentration of 0.146 a couple of hours later.
Durham admitted responsibility for the crash, but wanted to plead guilty to a lesser charge and disputed whether he had the prescribed concentration of alcohol in his blood.
This meant the matter went to a judge-alone trial in the NSW District Court, the decision of which was published earlier this month.
Judge Gordon Lerve said Durham had “obviously been drinking a considerable quantity of alcohol”.
The high range prescribed concentration of alcohol is 0.15 or more. The expert pharmacologist called by the prosecution argued it was not a reasonable possibility that Durham had a blood alcohol reading of under 0.15 at the time of the crash, but the defence’s expert said there was such a possibility as he was hyperglycaemic.
This refers to high blood sugar levels and it affects people with diabetes.
Judge Lerve ultimately said while the defence’s expert was a world leader in his field of pharmacology, he did not have the expertise to give an expert opinion about the endocrine system. He rejected this expert’s evidence.
“The fact remains on the material before me it is entirely speculative as to whether the accused’s diabetes delayed the absorption of the undoubted very substantial quantity of alcohol that the accused had consumed,” Judge Lerve said.
Durham was found guilty of an aggravated charge of driving under the influence occasioning grievous bodily harm.
“Given the verdict I have just announced, I apprehend it is likely (or perhaps inevitable) that there will be factual dispute as to what I should find so far as the actual blood alcohol reading was at the time of the impact for the purpose of sentence,” the judge said.
Durham, now aged 34, will face a sentencing hearing on 3 October.
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