A woman who killed her sister while driving home drunk from a “bottomless brunch” has argued her prison sentence should be reduced - possibly to home detention - because police are partially to blame for not arresting her earlier.
Arohanui Ahimoka Siakifilo, 31, was sentenced in January to three years’ imprisonment after admitting to the May 2023 crash, which occurred as she tried to swerve around a parked crane at 156km/h in a South Auckland neighbourhood with a 50km/h speed limit.
She had just minutes earlier been pulled over and issued infringements for driving in a manner likely to injure, carrying passengers on a restricted licence and driving with an expired warrant of fitness.
But at the conclusion of the traffic stop, she was allowed to drive off despite what should have been obvious signs of intoxication, defence lawyer Andrew Young argued last month as he appeared in the High Court at Auckland before Justice Laura O’Gorman.
A Manukau District Court judge erred in considering the earlier traffic stop as an aggravating factor when it should have actually been a mitigating factor, Young suggested at the appeal hearing.
In a reserved decision issued this week, Justice O’Gorman rejected the argument that the officer’s failure to notice Siakifilo’s intoxication reduced the defendant’s culpability in any way, describing it as “totally irrelevant”.
“Regardless of whether the police officer might have been able to ask about or test for intoxication (he did not have a breath analyser with him at the time), Ms Siakifilo knew she was driving well above the legal limit in addition to the other offending conduct for which she received infringement notices and a warning for speed,” Justice O’Gorman wrote.
“Her conduct only a few minutes later showed belligerent disregard for the speed warning. I entirely agree with the sentencing judge that these facts constitute aggravating circumstances that may have justified an even higher starting point than five years.”
Siakifilo had attended the bottomless brunch — suggesting all-you-can-eat food and alcohol — as an early Mother’s Day celebration with two of her sisters and a friend.
It “seemingly wore long into the afternoon”, and at 7.20 that Friday evening, Siakifilo decided to drive everyone home after she couldn’t get her Uber app to work, District Court Judge Luke Radich noted at her sentencing.
Her blood alcohol level would later be assessed as 172 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood — over three times the limit of 50 milligrams for those on restricted licences. But the intoxication test wouldn’t be until after the fatal crash.
She was initially pulled over on Portage Rd in Ōtāhuhu, and told she was stopped due to speeding, although the officer did not have time to clock her exact speed.
“In explanation, the defendant stated that the back passenger’s daughter was crying at home and they needed to get home,” according to the summary of facts Siakifilo agreed to.
The head-on crash, after she crossed the centre line, occurred “minutes later” in a largely residential neighbourhood.
“Anybody familiar with that area would be astounded that somebody could get up to 156km/h in an area of that nature,” Judge Radich commented in January.
“To say there was a driving fault here would be a major understatement.
“She was ... exceeding the legal [alcohol] limit by three times just as she was exceeding the speed limit by three times. The speed was extraordinary given the circumstances and the nature of the area.”
The crash killed 25-year-old Julie Siakifilo, who had been celebrating her first Mother’s Day after giving birth five months earlier.
The defendant’s other passengers were also seriously injured, but the stranger whose vehicle she hit head-on suffered the worst injuries of the survivors.
Court documents and her own victim impact statement outlined fractures to her ribs, spine, legs and pelvis, as well as two broken ankles. She needed a skin graft on one knee and had pins put in her hip and toes.
She experienced numbness to the entire left side of her body due to what she believes is nerve damage.
The woman wept in court during the sentencing as a prosecutor read aloud her victim impact statement. It described how she was confined to a wheelchair for months, including while serving as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding.
On appeal, the defendant’s lawyer also argued that the sentencing judge didn’t give enough credence to the wishes of the other victims - Siakifilo’s family and friend.
In statements prepared for the appeal, both of her injured surviving passengers and her now-widowed brother-in-law expressed forgiveness and a desire to move on.
The Crown, it was suggested, “either failed to make all reasonable efforts, or entirely omitted, to obtain the views of all victims, leaving the court without the broader spectrum necessary for a balanced assessment”.
But Crown prosecutor Jacinda Bragg told the court that simply wasn’t true.
She provided the court a statement from a police officer describing efforts to get victim impact statements from all victims and their “reluctance ... to engage”.
But even if they had provided victim impact statements, it wouldn’t have been enough to reduce the sentence, Justice O’Gorman said in her decision.
“The support and forgiveness of Ms Siakifilo’s family members and friend have no material bearing on the appropriateness of the sentence that has been imposed,” she explained.
“The sentencing judge clearly appreciated the emotional complexities involved.
“The ongoing support of her family and friend cannot override other purposes and principles of sentencing.”
Those principles included the importance of denunciation and deterrence and a sentence that reflected “the terrible consequences that resulted”.
“None of the further statements from Ms Siakifilo’s supporters overcome the importance of these principles or provide any proper basis for a lower starting point or end sentence,” she said.
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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