June 3, 2016 12:00pm by David Farrar

How about not lying to Police in the first place?

Two judges have given similar sentences to a pair of racers snapped at about 200kmh – except that one gets to keep his identity secret.

Police caught them both whizzing down State Highway 2 in Lower Hutt in performance cars in September.

Shane Kumar, 26, an IT programmer from Miramar, was found guilty on Monday of racing his Nissan Skyline after a day-long judge-alone trial before Judge Bruce Davidson.

The other driver, a 24-year-old from Lower Hutt, was found guilty in February – but he was granted permanent name suppression by Judge Chris Tuohy, despite being found to have lied to police.

Unlike Kumar, the 24-year-old had a letter of support from Hutt South MP Trevor Mallard, saying he was “a young man with tremendous potential” whose years of study could be “negated by a conviction for lying to the police”.

If you don’t lie to the Police in the first place, the you won’t need to worry about the impact of a conviction for lying to them.

Very unfair one of them gets name suppression, but another doesn’t.