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Home / Northern Advocate

Family outraged by court decision not to prosecute

By Kristin Edge
Reporter·Northern Advocate·
28 May, 2010 06:41 AM4 mins to read

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The driver at the centre of a crash that killed a Northland woman and left a toddler with life-long injuries has got off scott-free, their family says.
Miriam Matene-Tohu died and baby Tewaipuke was seriously injured when a trailer loaded with posts snapped off a truck and slammed into their vehicle.
An
inquest into the death of the 44-year-old caregiver from Kawakawa was held in Whangarei District Court yesterday but her family are angry the driver was not charged over the fatality.
The family say the wrong message was being sent to the public that driving an unwarranted vehicle and towing a faulty trailer was acceptable. They want an apology from the driver so they can have closure.
Mrs Matene-Tohu died when the trailer being towed north struck her southbound car near Whakapara on State Highway 1, about 7.12pm on December 10, 2008.
During the hearing, before chief coroner Judge Neil MacLean, it was revealed the driver Anthony Fraser-Jones did not have the correct license to drive the Nissan truck, carrying a small digger at the time, which had no warrant of fitness when the crash happened.
The trailer, which he had borrowed from a friend, should not have been on the road as the warrant of fitness had lapsed 20 months earlier.
The dead woman's sister, Kate Matene, who is the mother of the injured baby Tewaipuke, was struggling to understand how the driver had not been held accountable for the tragedy.
She said her son, now 2, had life-long injuries including  blindness in one eye and needing ongoing physiotherapy on his right arm and leg.
Miss Matene had been in the process of letting her sister adopt Tewaipuke when she was killed.
"Is that it? They have just let that man walk free and told us it's over," Miss Matene said.
"We haven't even had an apology. This was supposed to be closure for us today but it's just opened up old wounds.
"Now our sister is just a statistic."
She said she found it hard sometimes to look at her son because of the injuries.
"He's not the same baby. I reckon the driver should get charged. He should pay for Tewaipuke for the treatment he needs for the rest of his life.
"We have been let down by the system."
The court heard from Senior Constable Jim Hawthorn, a crash analyst for Northland police with 30 years' experience. He said in his opinion there had been enough evidence to proceed with prosecution.
However, the process did not allow him to lay charges and he forwarded the file to the police legal section.
"A lawyer looked at it and in his opinion there was insufficient evidence to charge Mr Fraser-Jones with causing the death," Mr Hawthorn said.
The driver had instead been issued with a number of infringement notices.
"The sole cause is the draw bar separating from the body of the trailer," Mr Hawthorn said. The trailer had last been inspected on September 23, 2005.
Following the death a check found that the trailer would not have passed a warrant of fitness  inspection as the drawbar was cracked, the tyres were perished, lights and wiring were faulty and the wheel bearings were worn.
Mechanical engineer Shane Speight inspected the broken centre pole tow bar on the Kia KMac single-axle light tipping trailer and said it could have been days or even on the same day from the initial fracture to failure.
He did not believe the trailer had been overloaded.
Judge McLean closed the hearing by making a recommendation that publicity be given to ensure all trailers had a current warrant. He found Mrs Matene-Tohu died of multiple severe injuries, particularly significant trauma to the head, sustained in the crash.
 
 

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