A Victorian magistrate has allowed a Bhutanese immigrant who crashed his car while drunk and unlicensed to escape a conviction so he can get permanent residency in Australia.
Karma Tshering, 30, who came to Australian in 2023 to work in aged care and is on a temporary visa, pleaded guilty to careless driving, drink driving, not displaying L-plates and being an unaccompanied L-plater over the November 8, 2025, crash in Bendigo.
Bendigo Magistrates Court heard last week that Tshering was driving home from a friend’s farewell party when he lost control of a family car registered in his sister’s name at 11.13pm and slammed into a parked car and a fence, later blowing 0.195, the Bendigo Advertiser reported.
Tshering’s defence lawyer blamed the decision to drive on his client’s drunkenness, which made him believe he was in a “suitable headspace” to get behind the wheel.
“In reality it was his level of intoxication that led to that lacklustre decision,” the lawyer said.
He told the court Tshering now lived one minute from his workplace and would have no temptation to drive, and asked for no conviction to be recorded lest it impact his client’s chances of being granted a permanent visa.
Magistrate Russell Kelly told Tshering was “lucky you are not up in the County Court today, looking at 10 years for killing someone because you were drunk”, and called the decision to drive the “most selfish thing a person can do”.
But he ultimately decided to spare Tshering a conviction, fined him $1,000 and banned him from driving for 19 months.
The court heard Tshering returned to the crash scene to apologise to the owners of the other car, and paid for and helped repair the fence he destroyed.
Header image: Bendigo Law Courts (Court Services Victoria).
