KATE DeAraugo avoided conviction and was fined $500 for her second drug driving offence of 2017.
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The former Australian Idol winner was sentenced in the Castlemaine Magistrates’ Court on Friday after she tested positive to ice while driving in Castlemaine on September 26.
She was sentenced last month for drug and weapons offences in relation to that incident, but police were still waiting on the results of her drug test at that stage.
They came back positive. Her current matters before the court have now concluded.
After handing down his sentence, Magistrate Patrick Southey questioned whether the media coverage of DeAraugo’s court appearances was warranted, saying she had received a “fair degree of extra-curial punishment”.
He also asked a Bendigo Advertiser reporter whether readers were that interested in the matter.
“You might be insulting your readers’ intelligence with this,” Mr Southey said.
DeAraugo was pulled over by police on Etty Street in Castlemaine on September 26 and found in possession of an antique knife and a small snaplock bag of ice.
She was also sentenced last month after she was caught drug driving in Shepparton on June 15, with a large knife, tomahawk and 0.2 grams of ice found in her car.
For these matters, DeAraugo was placed on a 12-month community corrections order and her licence was disqualified for the minimum six months.
DeAraugo did not attend court on Friday.