TOP STORY: Fatal-fire mum is sent to jail again

A woman once jailed over the loss of two of her three children in a fire was yesterday sentenced to another four years for using her vehicle to run down a young woman on a footpath in Hastings.
Louana Merry Lydia Ngarapene Patuwai, 28, was appearing before Judge Lee Spear in the Napier District Court, after pleading guilty to charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and driving while forbidden after the hit and run, which happened about daybreak on May 26.
She also admitted driving with an excess breath-alcohol level of 770mics on September 21.
Her tragic past was barely covered in court, with probation reports and defence counsel Rebecca Guthrie revealing Patuwai would not talk about the events which led to the deaths of her children, and their father, near Gisborne on December 19, 2003.
Five months later she was sentenced to 18 months' jail for failing to provide the necessities of life, as a judge made a point of sending "a very clear message" about the neglect of children in New Zealand.
Courts were told she left the children at the mercy of an overheating stove in their Patutahi bungalow while she went to pick up their father, Harry Grant, from the pub.
After a few drinks and games of pool, the couple left the pub and, after spotting an ominous orange glow around their home, Patuwai rescued her four-year-old son from a smoke-filled hallway.
But the other two, aged six and three, died along with their father, after he went in to try to rescue them.
In court yesterday, Judge Spear said Patuwai was lucky she wasn't facing a charge of murder as a result of the hit and run.
The victim, 23, had been one of a group she had been driving home from a party but when an argument developed, Patuwai made the others get out of the vehicle in Heretaunga Street.
As they walked away, Patuwai drove the vehicle onto the footpath, rammed the victim from behind, then drove off.
The victim's injuries included a spinal fracture. The woman revealed in a victim impact statement referred to by the judge that she had become reliant on fulltime care and was unable to look after her own children full-time. "You have dealt her a life sentence," the judge told Patuwai. "She will never recover from the injuries sustained because of your outpouring of rage."
Ms Guthrie said her client's rage had been sparked by an attack on Patuwai's sister and the hit-and-run took place as Patuwai had fled, although she accepted the summary which told how Patuwai had lined up her victim and had driven straight at her. Patuwai was also disqualified from driving for five years.