Four-time killer defiant to the end

By JAMES GARDINER



The drink-driving killer who took four lives in two crashes finally admitted he was responsible yesterday and claimed to be sorry for his victims - then gave a High Court judge the fingers as he was led away to jail.

For 20 years, Gavin Maurice Hawthorn defied police, ignored the law and thumbed his nose at judges' orders. It will be years before he can do that again.

Hawthorn, 41, of Carterton, was found guilty this month of the manslaughter of Lance Fryer.

Yesterday, he made a last-ditch attempt to win favour with the sentencing judge through a letter handed to his lawyer a day earlier.

But Justice Alan MacKenzie said it was "too little too late", cast doubt on Hawthorn's sincerity or willingness to change, and sentenced him to 10 years' jail, with a minimum non-parole period of six years, eight months short of the maximum.

"I will never forget the pain and suffering I must have caused so many families," Hawthorn said in the letter read out by his lawyer, Des Deacon.

Mr Fryer, 34, was a passenger killed when Hawthorn crashed his car at high speed a year ago after a night out drinking.

Mr Fryer's parents, from Masterton, were in the Wellington courtroom.

Afterwards, Gary Fryer said he was satisfied with the sentence.

He said Hawthorn's letter was "just to try to get some sympathy - I'm afraid it didn't work with me".

Mr Deacon said Hawthorn would have read the letter himself, but he had a speech impediment.

"I take full responsibility for what has happened but most of all I wish I could trade places with my friend Lance Fryer," the letter said.

"It doesn't seem fair to me that I should live with another fatal accident on my already tormented soul.

"I should never be allowed to drive again."

The letter was the first indication that Hawthorn had any regret about what he did or even accepted he was at fault.

Mr Deacon said it was not prompted by anyone, and Hawthorn had handed it to him when he visited him in prison on Thursday.

As he sat in the dock his head down, his scraggly brown hair combed straight, Hawthorn showed no emotion on his badly scarred face.

The judge pointed out that Hawthorn had made a "pathetic attempt" to claim Mr Fryer was the driver and "maintained that hopeless pretence until it was shown at your trial to be completely untenable".

On the evening of June 3 Hawthorn, who had already been drinking, decided to drive from Carterton to Wellington to visit nightclubs.

He did not have a valid driver's licence and was in breach of bail conditions that banned him from drinking, entering bars and a 7pm-7am curfew.

He persuaded Mr Fryer to go with him.

He drove back early the next morning, alarming another motorist as he tore past on the Rimutaka Hill road then being clocked by radar at 167km/h on the Tauherenikau Straight and recklessly passing another car shortly before Greytown with a police car in pursuit.

He drove through the town so fast that when a car pulled out in front of him he lost control and smashed into a power pole which crushed the side of the car on which Mr Fryer was sitting.

The crash was not far from where in 1989 Hawthorn, then 26, crashed head on into another vehicle, killing his two passengers and injuring the other car's occupants, one of whom later died during corrective surgery.

"It is completely beyond comprehension that you should have chosen to drive in the manner you did in the light of that previous experience," Justice MacKenzie said.

He did not accept Mr Deacon's arguments that the calculations of Hawthorn's speed through Greytown were too high or that Hawthorn was not affected by alcohol.

"This was an appalling piece of driving. In your hands the car was a lethal weapon. It was as dangerous as a loaded gun."

Crown prosecutor Mark O'Donoghue said Hawthorn had proved himself to be a public menace.

The judge agreed.

He said aggravating factors included driving after drinking, driving without a licence, repeated risk-taking, grossly excessive speed, the fact children could have been on their way to school at that time of morning, and the attempt to outrun a police car.

"But the worst aggravating feature of all is your appalling record."

Hawthorn had 11 drink-driving related convictions, 10 convictions for driving while disqualified, three for dangerous driving, one for careless driving, two for refusing to accompany police and after the last crash refused for three hours to give a blood sample.

"And those are only your driving-related convictions."

Sentencing normally involved balancing aggravating factors with mitigating factors, but there were none.

A pre-sentence report on Hawthorn said he showed no signs of being sorry for anyone else, but had a high level of self-pity and was likely to reoffend.

"This is the fourth death which your grossly irresponsible conduct has caused on the road," the judge said.

He also disqualified Hawthorn from holding a driver's licence for 10 years.

OTHER FATAL CASES

* Drunk driver Kevin Herkey Tu was jailed for seven years in February 2001 for killing his partner and her brother when his car smashed into a power pole near Gisborne.

* Repeat drunk driver Gregory Corbett Cameron was sentenced in June 2000 to seven years' for crashing into a mini-van near Tauranga, killing passenger Nedrina McMullan.

* 19-year-old drunk driver Damian Cook was sentenced to five years in jail for killing Rosemary Eller in October 2002, when his vehicle crossed the centre line.