Former Seven TV host Andrew O’Keefe has avoided another day in court, pleading guilty to drug-driving the day he was scheduled for a court hearing.
O’Keefe was pulled over for a roadside test in the salubrious Sydney suburb of Point Piper in January.
Police took him for a secondary saliva test and suspended his licence.
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O’Keefe was charged in April with driving a vehicle with an illicit drug in his blood after the saliva sample returned a positive result.
The 52-year-old former TV host’s lawyer Sharon Ramsden entered a guilty plea on his behalf in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday.
O’Keefe has been on a “sincere endeavour” to abstain from drugs since being granted bail in August, after breaching the conditions of his earlier release on other charges.
“That treatment is ongoing by both his treating psychologist and psychiatrist,” Ramsden told the court on Tuesday as O’Keefe watched on.
Magistrate Miranda Moody said O’Keefe’s driving was not what attracted police attention, but that was not the charge, and his driving history did not assist him.
“He has clearly had some issues with illicit drug use,” she said.
But with no “live offending” and evidence that he had successfully been abstaining from drugs, O’Keefe was granted a conditional release order, essentially a good behaviour bond, for 12 months.
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