Dangerous driver misses dead mate

"Sorry Sam ... miss you."

These four words were written by teen driver Jaye Garnham on a canoe polo ball as an apology and a farewell to his dead mate.

The ball sits in the Hastings home of Chris and Toni O'Kane in memory of their 15-year-old son, Samuel, who was killed along with close friend James Te Whaiti, 16, in a crash on the Napier-Hastings expressway-Meeanee Rd intersection at midnight on September 24 last year.

Sixteen-year-old Garnham was driving a Mitsubishi Mirage when it collided with a truck and trailer unit driven by Jacob Pere.

The impact tore the car in half, with O'Kane and Te Whaiti dying at the scene from head injuries.

Garnham was injured in the accident, along with Rowan Walsh, 16, and Alexander Van Rijk, 16. All five boys were fifth-formers at St John's College in Hastings.

Garnham was sentenced yesterday in the High Court at Napier to 200 hours' community service and disqualified for driving for three years, on two charges of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing injury.

Garnham had originally been facing manslaughter charges but these were reduced at the request of the O'Kane and Te Whaiti families. Garnham pleaded guilty on May 28.

The O'Kanes refuse to blame the accident solely on Garnham.

"At the end of the day it's just a tragic accident and he was the poor guy who was driving the car. It could've been any of them.

"He [Garnham] doesn't deserve to go to jail because so many other factors have gone on - there's enough damage done now, this poor kid doesn't need to suffer that," Mr O'Kane said.

Mrs O'Kane hoped Garnham was able to move on with his life.

"We think that maybe he's got an opportunity now to do something with his life and we hope he does. We just pray he'll be able to," she said.

Mrs O'Kane tenses as she recalls hearing the news of her son's death. She was lying in bed, wide awake at 12.30am, when she saw the police pull up outside her house.

She asked the officers if Sam was all right. They told her to get her husband.

Sam and his friends did everything together but were neither boy racers nor "ratbags", Mrs O'Kane said.

She's had enough of the stories circulating about her son and his friends on the night of the accident - they were on drugs, they were drunk, they were "zooming" around.

The rumours were hurtful and totally false, she said.

"It was like we were the worst parents and that we had little hellions for kids."

In fact, Sam had his life mapped out, planning to be an auto-electrician before taking over his father's business.

He was a keen sportsman, playing canoe polo, soccer, rugby, hockey, golf and cricket.

The O'Kanes now avoid the intersection where their son died, an intersection that Mr O'Kane used to warn his son about.

The canoe polo ball, signed by Sam's friends, sits in a corner of the O'Kanes' house.

Along with photographs and Sam's bedroom that remains as he left it, it's a memorial to the "fun and giving kid" who went out one night and never came home.

- NZPA