Chilean man charged with causing fatal Far North crash

Two elderly Far North women died when their Ford Fiesta collided with a people mover near Houhora. Photo / Supplied

Police have charged a Chilean man with causing the deaths of two Far North women in a head-on smash last Tuesday.

Twenty-eight-year-old Chilean national Dante Felipe Basaez Vera denied two charges of careless driving causing death and one of careless driving causing injury, when he appeared before Judge Deidre Orchard in the Kaitaia District Court.

Marion Andrew (left) and Pauline Ogilvy were much loved in their Far North community.

He was remanded on bail, without a residence condition, to appear again on July 4 for a case review.

Judge Orchard, who addressed the defendant through an interpreter, noted Vera had surrendered his passport to police.

The charges follow a two-car collision on Houhora Heads Road on May 15.

One of the passengers of the other vehicle, Marion Evelyn Andrew, 77, died at the scene.

Pauline Mary Ogilvy, 76, died at Whangarei Hospital the same day.

The double-fatality occurred just over a month after an American visitor was charged with causing two deaths in another Far North road crash.

US citizen Reiss Martin Berger, 21, and his partner had been in New Zealand on his first visit only hours before that crash about 11pm on April 2.

The impact killed James Hamiora and Yvarn Tepania, who were in the front seats, and injured two others in the back of the car, about 7km south of Kerikeri.