Editorial: Family's agony is revisited

One cannot help but feel enormous sympathy for the family of William Hoskins.

The 26-year-old Hastings man died after he was run over by a vehicle while walking back from a wedding in Matangi, Waikato, early one morning last January.

Coroner Garry Evans is currently conducting an inquest into the former Karamu High School student's death.

David Mascelle, whose wife Ngaire is a Waikato community magistrate and who was a passenger in the car, was towing an 800kg loaded trailer when he hit Mr Hoskins at Matangi about 4.40am on January 15 last year.

The 48-year-old was initially charged with careless driving causing death, but police dropped the charge about six months later. The coroner is examining all aspects of the case, including how Mr Hoskins came to be on the road at that time of the morning and whether the driver had seen and adequately identified him before running over him.

It would be easy to raise questions about what Mr Hoskins was doing on a rural road at that time of the morning, but these are some of the things young, and older people, do. He needed to get back to his motel, so he walked. In hindsight, it was not the safest thing to do, but he certainly did not deserve to die in this fashion.

It must be awful for Mr Hoskins' family to have to hear the horrible details of his death all over again, nearly a year-and-a-half after the incident. They have a hole in their lives that will never be filled, but hopefully enough information will come out of the inquest to make it possible to find ways to ensure needless deaths like this do not occur.

In the meantime, here's hoping Mr Hoskins' family members find peace and closure, and are able to remember the happy times spent with their loved one.