Got off very lightly

Stuff reports:

A 46-year-old man must pay $500 to the woman he terrified by tailgating her for 17km across North Canterbury, but is allowed to keep driving. 

Michael Dean Teague was on Friday ordered to make the payment for emotional harm to the woman, who declined to meet him at a restorative justice meeting while he awaited sentencing for intimidation.

Defence counsel Paul Norcross told the Christchurch District Court that Teague was genuinely remorseful and had been willing to meet the victim to apologise. …

The woman he followed was terrified by his actions. In her written victim impact report she said she “had never been so scared in her life. Your reaction was so over the top it was unbelievable,” Judge Stephen O’Driscoll said.

She said she had not expected any reparation, but hoped Teague would lose his driver’s licence. 

“Just thinking about it even now makes me feel anxious, I can feel that frightened emotion that I felt that night and it’s still very vivid in my mind when I’m driving at night … I’m not the same.”

I would be terrified also. If someone followed me in a road rage for 17 km, I would conclude they were determined to kill or seriously wound me.

The police said that about 10.20pm on April 8, Teague was driving his Mitsubishi Outlander on Glasnevin Road, Amberley.

The woman flashed her lights because Teague’s lights were on high beam and he then braked heavily, did a U-turn and accelerated hard up behind her car.

His vehicle was so close that all she could see in her mirror was the bonnet of his vehicle.

He kept on tailgating the victim for about 3km, while she became frightened and phoned the police.

Teague continued to follow her into Waipara township, where she turned into a dead end street.

She drove to the end of the street, turned around and stopped. Teague stopped in the middle of the road about 30m away with his lights on full beam.

The woman managed to get past him and drove back to State Highway 1 where she drove to Amberley with Teague still chasing her.

This is almost psychotic behaviour and totally unacceptable. I’d classify it as near threatening to kill and personally would throw him in jail for say four weeks to get across the message he must never ever do this again.