Judge's burger tip finds favour

5:00AM Saturday May 05, 2007 By Errol Kiong
It may have been a tongue-in-cheek, eyebrow-raising comment, but "old drinker" Judge Barry Morris seems to know what he was talking about.
During a sentencing this week, Judge Morris asked Hastings drink driver Peter Brittin whether he had "problem with grog or was it just a night out drinking?"
"Take a tip from one old drinker to another. Have a dinkum old-style hamburger first - not the modern ones."
Massey University nutritionist John Birkbeck said yesterday Judge Morris was correct in his advice to Brittin.
"It's not necessarily the amount of alcohol consumed, it's the level to which it rises in the blood. You can either have a lower level of alcohol in the blood by consuming less alcohol, or you can slow the absorption of alcohol.
"Absorption of alcohol largely occurs in the stomach because it's a very small molecule that's easy to absorb. The presence of food, and particularly the presence of fatty food, does slow the absorption of alcohol."
Judge Morris would not comment on his statement yesterday. A Courts of New Zealand spokesman said judges could not elaborate on matters said in court as it could alter the record of what actually occurred, especially when the case was still subject to appeal or review.
Michael Morgan, president of the Hawke's Bay District Law Society, said: "I thought it was intended to be somewhat amusing, but with a serious message.
"I doubt that he was intending to suggest that a good old-fashioned hamburger is a cure to all alcohol-related problems."
Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams asked people to make up their own minds.
"The best thing, if drinking, is to plan the trip home before you've been drinking so you don't have the risk of getting behind the wheel of a car, and putting yourself and others at risk."
Appointed an Auckland District Court judge in 1988, Judge Morris hit the headlines in 1995 when he expressed his dislike of taggers to a teenager before him in court accused of tagging. "If I had my way I would hang them and if I couldn't hang them I would put them in stocks and pour paint over them."
In 2001, he labelled the media "ghouls" as he sentenced a woman who stole enough pills to make up to $2 million of the drug speed.