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September 21st, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
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Former Supreme Court judge Roderick Howie was affected by a “cocktail of alcohol and medication”, including drugs for anxiety and insomnia, when he had a serious car accident in May this year.
The eminent former judge pleaded guilty to mid-range drink driving in June after clipping a B-double truck and hitting a car just minutes after leaving his home in north-west Sydney for the central coast.
Ryde Local Court magistrate Daniel Reiss sentenced Howie, 61, to 100 hours of community service and disqualified his driver’s licence for six months.
Howie’s lawyer said his client had taken medication for anxiety and high blood pressure, including valium and a mood stabiliser, the night before the accident and had not realised he was affected by alcohol.
A police statement tendered to Ryde Local Court shows that Howie made it barely two streets from his home in Beecroft before clipping the rear trailer of the B-double truck on Beecroft Road.
He then travelled along the footpath for 15 metres before crossing over four lanes to the other side of the road into oncoming traffic, colliding with a car, which then hit a third vehicle.
No one was seriously injured.
Officers who attended the accident said Howie was “unsteady on his feet, his face was flushed and his eyes watery”.
Having initially recorded a reading of .168, a breath analysis at Eastwood police station later that morning produced a reading of .121 – just inside the medium level drink-driving category.
Howie was charged with driving under the influence and had his licence suspended.
He reportedly told police that he had consumed a bottle of red wine between 7pm and 11pm the night before the accident, along with a “light and easy Thai chicken meal”.
Magistrate Reiss said it was “highly disturbing” that Mr Howie had been “affected by a cocktail of alcohol and medication” at the time the “very serious” accident occurred.
“It is extremely lucky that neither you nor anyone else involved did not suffer serious injury,” magistrate Reiss said.
It was “painfully ironic” that while serving as a Supreme Court Judge, Mr Howie had written the guideline judgment on penalties for high-range drink driving.
The court heard that Mr Howie had been taking medication for anxiety and sleeplessness for a considerable number of years.
It also heard that the former judge was “mortified” and “extremely remorseful” about what had happened, resigning from a number of legal bodies on which he had served, including the NSW Sentencing Commission.
Paul Bibby is a Herald court reporter
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