Drunk driver accused loses bid to get scooter back

A Whakatane man accused of driving his mother's mobility scooter while drunk has failed in a court bid to have the vehicle returned.

The scooter was impounded when Gregory Paul Smyth was arrested for allegedly driving it at double the legal alcohol limit last month.

He was also charged with driving the scooter while disqualified.

Smyth would defend both charges on the basis that a mobility scooter was not a motor vehicle, and a driver's licence was not required to ride one, his lawyer Ani Attwood told Whakatane District Court on Wednesday.

She asked Judge Peter Rollo to release the mobility scooter from impound because Smyth and his mother, in her 80s, both needed it to get around and were unhappy about paying the impound fee. Smyth had been using the scooter because he had injured his back. Judge Rollo declined jurisdiction to release the scooter. Smyth was remanded at large for a pre-trial conference on December 9, to set a date for a hearing.