Mourners pile on ute's flat deck and do wheelies on dirt bikes during the funeral cortege for jockey Ngakau Hailey.
The grandmother of the young jockey killed in a dirt bike crash has blasted a “disrespectful” group who did wheelies on a Waikato highway, cutting off and surrounding family vehicles in a funeral procession.
Ngakau Hailey, 18, was killed when his dirt bike collided with a car at theintersection of Willoughby and Mill Sts in Hamilton on Wednesday, July 9.
Linda Gough and Hailey Ngakau at the racetrack.
Hailey’s grandmother Linda Gough told the Herald their family condemns the actions of the boys who took part in the daredevil dirt bike antics during the final journey to the cemetery, saying that it put their family in danger.
The funeral was held for the apprentice jockey on Monday at Park Chapel, Newstead Cemetery, on the outskirts of Hamilton.
“They drove in the gates for goodness sake, with all their bikes revving.
“And that’s what killed him.”
Ngakau Hailey. Photo / LoveRacing
As the family started driving down towards the highway on the day of the funeral, the dirt bike riders started coming up around the cars and even cut off Hailey’s grandfather’s vehicle.
“We’re talking a narrow road. And then [they] started doing stupid things like spinning on the grass and just doing really dumb stuff.
“I actually got quite angry,“ Gough said.
“My husband was driving, and I said, ‘Look, we’ve got to get these bikes to move. I don’t want them there’.”
She said she understood some of the boys had only met him one time and had come from Auckland.
“They’re not mates. Ngakau’s friendly with anyone he meets. You can see by the size of the funeral, the way people reacted, and all the stories about him. That’s what he was like.”
Mourners pile on a ute's flat deck and do wheelies on dirt bikes during the funeral cortege for jockey Ngakau Hailey.
Hamilton City area commander inspector Andrea McBeth condemned the highway fiasco, saying police were “extremely disappointed in the dangerous behaviour on our roads, particularly when a family is grieving”.
“One young person dying on our roads is too many, and we need to work together to prevent tragedy occurring.”
Grandmother says ‘disrespectful’ act tainted his memory
Gough said her late grandson would never have been involved in an act like this that put their family in danger.
“That is the last thing that boy would have ever done. He had so much respect for people.
“They would have known what Ngakau stood for, and it certainly wasn’t for their disrespect at a funeral.
“If they are claiming to be friends of Ngakau, they would never have been so disrespectful as to tarnish his memory like that and to cut his family off from our boy.
“They put the rest of our family in danger. They put those kids in danger.
“They just focused all their attention on themself [sic] and it wasn’t about them. It was about our boy going to his final resting [place].”
Gough said Hailey was a very active, respectful and competitive boy who did everything with his whole heart.
The funeral was packed to the brim with people who were lined up outside, and the tangi the family had for five days at home was full of “beautiful tributes”, Gough said.
“We all slept [there], everyone did. A lot of people from everywhere, all from his sports teams, from the schools he went to.
“Basically, anything he had done through his life, they had stories to tell about him. And then to have that ruined by the bikes doing that.”
Hailey was a determined boy who saved enough money at 16 to buy himself a $20,000 car, Gough said.
“When he got the car, he says, ‘Look, Nan,’ he said, ‘It’s a five-star safety rating’.
