Ashleigh Jane Morton: Hopetoun woman fined for taking her kids on ‘extremely dangerous’ golf buggy joy ride

A Hopetoun woman who stole a golf buggy and took it on a dangerous joy ride through the town with her children sitting unsecured in the back — narrowly avoiding getting hit by a car — has been handed a fine. Ashleigh Jane Morton connected to the Albany Magistrates Court over the phone from Hopetoun on Thursday, facing four charges relating to alleged offending in Hopetoun on December 3. Two of her four charges — using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence; and dangerous driving — were discontinued. She pleaded guilty to the remaining charges of stealing a motor vehicle and driving dangerously, and trespassing on a place without lawful excuse. Police prosecutor Sgt Dylan Fisher told the court the 38-year-old trespassed at Wavecrest Village and Tourist Park in Hopetoun and stole a motorised golf buggy. He said she drove the buggy through Hopetoun, with her passenger holding up a mobile phone torch to use instead of headlights, and collected her children, allowing them to sit unsecured in the flat open tray on the back of the vehicle as she drove. She then took the buggy on a “joy ride” with the children sitting in the back, driving it around the local oval and then on the road, forcing a passing car to swerve to avoid her, before abandoning the buggy in the middle of the road. Sgt Fisher said Morton had put her own children in serious danger, and her actions could easily have had “serious consequences”, particularly if the passing driver had not been paying attention and taken evasive measures. Morton spoke up in her own defence, saying the buggy “didn’t go that fast” and her children were not in as much danger as Sgt Fisher was suggesting. She did, however, acknowledge her behaviour was “childish”, and not something she would normally do. Legal Aid lawyer Eva Svanberg said Morton had been drinking at the Wavecrest Tavern before the incident, and she did not usually consume alcohol. She said Morton had been under a lot of stress and was feeling isolated in the small town. Magistrate Rosemarie Myers labelled Morton’s behaviour “ridiculous”. She said the speed of the buggy was irrelevant, and one of the children could still have been seriously injured if they had fallen off, particularly on the road where they could have been hit by a car. She said aside from the “extremely dangerous” situation she had put her children in, Morton was also teaching them through her own actions that the behaviour was acceptable. Morton was fined a total of $1300.