For six years prior to the moment a runaway construction truck hit and killed a road worker in a posh Auckland suburb, authorities repeatedly warned that the heavy-duty vehicle was not roadworthy.
Dangerously defective brakes were among the numerous issues cited by vehicle safety officers.
But Ashik Transport company director Ashik Ali kept using the vehicle anyway, with tragic results.
Now he’s pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Ali, 55, had been set to go to trial in the High Court at Auckland next week for the May 2024 worksite death of roadworker Johnathon Walters.
Details of the case, including the company’s shocking history of non-compliance, can now be reported for the first time following his arraignment yesterday.
The truck, with a full payload of chip seal roading metal, weighed over 20 tons when it began rolling down an incline along Remuera’s Victoria Avenue, where another night of road resurfacing work was just starting.
Walters and two Downer Group construction company co-workers were about 40 metres downhill, focusing on their work, when “without warning, Mr Ali’s truck had a brake failure and began reversing at speed”.
“Mr Walters did not hear or see the vehicle heading towards him and was knocked to the ground by the left rear corner of the truck,” court documents state.
“The truck’s dual rear wheels ran over Mr Walters’ legs and his pelvis area was run over by the truck’s front left wheel as it continued reversing downhill.
“The truck continued reversing down Victoria Ave at speed, while Mr Ali struggled to regain control as it zig-zagged across both lanes, narrowly avoiding other road workers and their vehicles.”
The vehicle finally stopped about 400 metres from where Walters had been hit, but only after it was slowed down by collisions with two lamp posts, a tree and a wall.
When another road worker asked Ali if he was okay, he replied that he was and said he’d “park up and come back”, documents state.
He instead fled - driving the truck, with its windscreen now gone, over 13km away to his Papatoetoe business premises.
When the site foreman called him and said he needed to return, explaining that Walters had been run over, Ali instead drove himself to Middlemore Hospital for a non-life-threatening arm injury.
The victim, meanwhile, was rushed into surgery at Auckland Hospital, where doctors amputated one leg and tried to reconstruct his other leg and pelvis. Despite their efforts, he died two days later as a result of the crushing injuries.
“I tried to press the brake, speed or clutches,” Ali told police when they spoke with him at Middlemore. “Nothing would work.”
But the truck’s defects should have been a surprise to no one, authorities have suggested.
Ali had bought the previously owned Isuzu CXZ 72J in November 2017 and it was issued its first pink sticker - barring it from being used on the road - just two months later.
“The VSO [vehicle safety officer] recorded the truck was in poor condition and should not have been on the road,” the summary of facts states of the January 2018 traffic stop.
A subsequent May 2019 inspection “established the brakes were dangerous and the vehicle should not have been operating”.
The company director was contacted by the New Zealand Transport Agency the following year, with officials expressing concern his fleet was not being maintained to a safe standard and the company was not paying road user fees.
The suspicions were confirmed following a July 2020 inspection of the entire fleet. As a result, Ali was ordered to obtain certificates of fitness every three months.
The following month, Ali told authorities he was addressing the truck’s brake issues. But when police again pulled over the truck in Otara in March 2021, it again failed a spot inspection.
“This truck was still subject to the pink sticker that was issued on 30 January 2018,” court documents state. “The sticker had been unlawfully removed.
“The inspection identified serious safety defects, including a cracked right front wheel, loose wheel nuts, the second axle differential was leaking oil, an air leak behind the cab (the air reservoir supplies air to the brake and suspension systems), insecure batteries, a stop light not working, and worn brushes on the tipper arm. The overall safety appearance of the truck was described as very bad by the VSO.”
More non-operation stickers were placed on the truck and the driver was issued a written notice warning that the vehicle should not be operated again unless on “a direct route to a place of repair”.
As a result, Ali assured authorities that he no longer intended to use the vehicle - choosing to scrap it rather than get it repaired. But instead, it appears, he simply changed the plates and kept on using it.
By the time of the fatality, the truck had been unregistered for two years and the last warrant of fitness had been issued three-and-a-half years prior.
When Ali showed up at the Remuera site around 8pm on May 8, 2024, he had already worked a 12-hour day at another Downer road construction site in North Auckland, using a different truck from his fleet. His company was subcontracted to work on the projects.
The sticker identifying the truck as unusable had been partially removed along with the last certificate of fitness, from nearly five years earlier.
A post-crash inspection revealed many of the defects that had been identified in 2021 still plagued the vehicle.
Ali now faces a sentence of up to life imprisonment following his admission of guilt to manslaughter. Justice Rebecca Edwards set a sentencing date for November.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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