Richard Dawson and his daughter, Fyfa Dawson.
The father of a teen cyclist killed after a collision with a concrete truck assumed the driver was at fault and would most likely be going through “some kind of hell”.
Richard Dawson wondered if he could talk to the company the driver worked for about his daughter’s death.
“I assumed that the driver was at fault and that they would likely be going through some kind of hell.
“My thoughts turned to the possibility of restorative justice; it turned out that the driver was not at fault.”
His daughter, Fyfa Dawson, was cycling through a temporary traffic management site on Springs Rd during construction of the Christchurch motorway in October 2019 when the truck turned left in front of her.
The 19-year-old was killed instantly.
The truck driver was never charged as a subsequent WorkSafe investigation alleged Downer New Zealand and McConnell Dowell failed to ensure the health and safety of members of the public as a safe and effective temporary traffic management system wasn’t in place.
WorkSafe laid charges against both construction companies.
However, as an alternative to prosecution Downer New Zealand and McConnell Dowell agreed to contribute almost $1.7m to safety work.
The commitment included contributing towards new studies, qualifications, guidelines and virtual reality training for safer roadworks, and running cyclist awareness programmes for roadworkers.
For Dawson, that meant there was no court process.
“The mechanics of that path meant that there was no automatic offering of a restorative justice meeting (with the companies), so I actively sought it out.”
Dawson reached out to a workplace justice organisation which facilitated a restorative justice meeting with himself, McConnell Dowell Constructors and Downer New Zealand.
He met with the two companies involved to discuss the incident and the impact it had on him.
“This seemed to me to be a better option than a court case,” Dawson said.
“The enforceable undertaking process can be very difficult for victims, who can readily feel invisible and not heard. The absence of the restorative justice process here might justly be judged to be an institutional failing.”
Coroner Ruth Thomas recently released her findings into his daughter’s death, calling for changes to temporary traffic management and the operation of heavy vehicles in the hope of preventing similar tragedies.
Dawson said that while it was reported that the findings had opened a “deep wound” for his family, that was not in fact his experience.
“I don’t know why. It may well be that the closure in 2022 began to create a valuable distance from the pain that began in 2019,” he said.
“While restorative justice may not be for everyone, and while my experience of it will not be exactly the same as another person’s, I do believe that it could be valuable if this hearing-centred institution is more widely appreciated and understood as a possible healing journey.
“There was a very long process in the determinations; all the way through, however, it seemed to me that a restorative justice process could be worthwhile for everybody involved. I proposed this to the companies, and they embraced the idea.”
The meeting regarding his daughter’s death met his hopes for restorative justice.
He said there were four representatives from the companies involved, while he had several people supporting him.
“There was something profoundly therapeutic about this for me. At the end, I was given a taonga, fashioned from the kawakawa pounamu, known for its healing properties. I was told that the circular shape represents continuity and an eternal connection. The koru patterns within the circle signify growth and peace. I have found the gift to be deeply moving and symbolic. I felt a kind of closure take place.”
Dawson said his interest in restorative justice began years before his daughter’s death when he was undertaking a law doctorate in justice.
“I was most interested in the possibilities of the legal hearing more broadly, and in the old justice principle, ‘Hear the other side’.”
“Something of an ideal restorative justice meeting unfolds in a circle where all voices can be heard; those who have suffered are given the space to ask questions and to speak their truth without interruption, with their pain received with respect and compassion.”
He said closure had something significant to do with forgiveness and that his experience had been a “spiralling” search over what it might mean to “forgive”.
“It was in the restorative justice process that I noticed something new, not ruminating in an unhealthy way about Fyfa’s death.
“The absence of corrosive feelings seemed to be a sign that an event of ‘forgiveness’ had occurred to me. This was not the erasure of suffering, nor the forgetting of harm, but some kind of release.”
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.