The trial for the man accused of murdering Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming has started today with a jury hearing harrowing details of the veteran Nelson policewoman’s final moments.
Hayden Tasker told the court today that he pleaded “not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter”.
The jury was later shown footage of the moment Fleming was mown down while on duty.
In the early hours of January 1, 2025, Fleming, 62, and Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay were foot patrolling a carpark in central Nelson when a vehicle driven by a member of the public drove towards them at speed.
Both officers were hit – hard – and were critically injured.
Soon after, at Nelson Hospital, Fleming died after suffering catastrophic and unsurvivable injuries.
Ramsay was rushed into the surgery that would save his life.
Police later charged Hayden Tasker with murdering Fleming and injuring Ramsey with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
He is also facing charges of injuring other police at the scene.
Tasker’s trial began this morning before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury in the High Court at Christchurch.
Jurors are expected to hear from more than 40 witnesses during the three-week trial.
In court today were members of Fleming’s family, including her husband, Bryn Olsen.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers has also been present in the courtroom.
After Justice Mander explained the trial process to the jury, Tasman Crown Solicitor Mark O’Donoghue opened the prosecution’s case against Tasker.
He outlined the summary of facts, and the jury was shown CCTV footage and images of the alleged murder.
The footage has been suppressed until today.
“On the 1st of January 2025, Hayden Tasker drove his car into two police officers. He accelerated as hard as he could and drove straight into them,” O’Donoghue began.
“Both of the officers were thrown for metres. Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming was killed … Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay was seriously injured.
“Other people in the vicinity were also put in danger. Some had to scramble, jump out of the way to safety as a result of what he did.”
O’Donoghue said that in late 2024 Tasker was living in a white Honda Odyssey in Motueka, about half an hour from Nelson
On New Year’s Eve, he purchased three bottles of wine from a supermarket and socialised with friends before driving to Nelson.
He arrived at 12.26am and purchased and ate a cheeseburger from McDonald’s, then spent the next hour-and-a-half driving around Nelson, parking up at various places.
Shortly before the alleged murder, he parked up at the Buxton Street carpark in central Nelson which was busy given the night’s celebrations.
“During this time, he drank about half a bottle of wine,” said O’Donoghue.
“He drank rapidly. He sculled it … he was ruminating and brooding about his personal life circumstances.”
Nearby, two police cars were one behind the other.
Fleming and Ramsay were standing speaking to their colleague in the driver’s seat of the vehicle at the back.
“The defendant looked over to his left and saw them and his thoughts turned to the police and how angry he was with the police,” said O’Donoghue.
“At 2:09am the defendant started his car, but he didn’t turn his headlights on.
“He drove forward out of his parking space, turned his car so that he was lined up with the two police officers. Having maneuvered his vehicle so that it was facing the two officers, the defendant accelerated as hard as he could straight at them.
“To use his own words, he ‘f***ing planted it’.”
O’Donoghue said two members of the public were between Tasker and the officers and were “forced to leap out of the way”.
“One went left and one went right. The two senior sergeants were not so fortunate,” he said.
“The defendant, accelerating as hard as he could, drove straight into them … He made no attempt to brake. He made no attempt to avoid the two officers.
“Senior Sergeant Fleming was dragged by the defendant’s car and thrown forwards. She ended up approximately 20m from the point of impact. She suffered catastrophic, unsurvivable head injuries as well as a raft of other serious injuries.
“She had to be resuscitated at the scene, and she was taken to Nelson Hospital by ambulance. There, she was placed on life support until her family could gather to say goodbye.
“Life support was turned off later that day and Lyn Fleming died within minutes.”
O’Donoghue said Ramsay was “thrown high into the air”.
“He was thrown a distance or propelled a distance of about 8m,” he told the jury.
“He suffered serious injuries including a dislocated shoulder, a badly gashed head - so bad you could see through to the skull - as well as other cuts and severe abrasions to various parts of his body.”
Tasker drove on, then turned 180 degrees and “lined himself up” with one of the parked police cars.
“He aimed straight at it and accelerated,” said O’Donoghue.
One of the officers in the car hit her head and was concussed.
As the car was “shunted”, it hit a member of the public who was giving first aid to Ramsay.
She suffered fractures to two bones in her right forearm that required surgical correction with the insertion of screws and two plates.
Tasker was pulled from the car and arrested.
He was later spoken to by a detective and said he “didn’t care” about what he had done.
Soon after he was incorrectly told he “ran three people over”.
“A little later there was a further exchange … the detective asked him whether he was intending on driving into these people,” said O’Donoghue.
“He replied he had seen the two there and he clearly remembered the people he hit ‘would have been cops’. He didn’t remember seeing the third person.
“He got that right, he knew what he’d done. He knew the people he had hit were in his words ‘cops’.”
The court heard when Tasker was asked “Were you aiming for the police?” he said “Yeah, yeah, yeah”.
He later said he was depressed and wanted to commit suicide by leading police on a car chase.
“Kind of like in a movie,” he told police.
He then claimed he had been drunk at the time.
O’Donoghue said Tasker referred to an incident in his past that he held anger at the police about.
“He admitted he hit the police officers at a fair speed of at least 30 to 40 kilometres, that he was in the car, he just f****** planted it and he had a 30-40m run-up,” he said.
“To summarise, he admitted to seeing the two officers, to accelerating as hard as he could, to getting a decent run up and driving into the two officers.
“And at the critical moment, the moment he did it, he admitted to being motivated by anger towards the police.”
When told he would be charged with murder, Tasker told police he “knows a lot about cars, speed, and the damage speed causes”.
“He said he knew there’d be a cop car in Buxton Square being New Year’s Eve and he mentioned or referred to using a car as a weapon,” said O’Donoghue.
“The Crown says this was no accident, no mistake, no manslaughter.
“The whole event was an act of completely senseless and pointless violence carried out by the defendant because he was angry at the police.”
The jury also heard about Tasker’s previous criminal offending.
On one occasion, he used a car as a weapon, ramming a man in a wheelchair after an altercation.
“The Crown says it puts forward a propensity or a tendency for Mr Tasker to use his car as a weapon against people in circumstances where he is angry at them,” said O’Donoghue.
“The Crown case is this tendency … makes it more likely that he deliberately or intentionally drove into the police officers.
Defence lawyer Josh Lucas also gave a short statement on behalf of Tasker.
He said the man’s defence was simple.
“Mr Tasker made a failed suicide attempt that night by way of an intended police chase, which sadly went wrong from the moment it started,” he said.
“He is guilty of manslaughter but not of murder. The difference between the two of them in this case is intent.
“The defence says that Mr Tasker lacked the intent for murder.”
Lucas said it was important to note that what happened to Fleming was “a tragedy”.
“That’s not in dispute. It was a tragedy that Senior Sergeant Ramsey was grievously injured. That’s not in dispute,” he said.
“It should not have happened. But unfortunately it did. And no one, especially not Mr Tasker, is shying away from those facts.
“He regrets what happened. He’s sorry for the loss and harm he caused. As he said to the police when interviewed: ‘It should have been me that died that night. No one else’.”
Lucas said Tasker also told police he was “going to have to live with the consequences of actions, namely someone being killed for the rest of his life”.
“The defence and Mr Tasker accept that he is the one that caused the death of Senior Sergeant Lynn Fleming. He was there on that night … he was driving,” he told the jury.
“But for you, the acceptance of all these facts does not mean that the matter is over. You have an important and crucial task in this trial … of working out what Mr Tasker’s intent was at the time he was driving.
“This trial is all about his intent. What did he intend to do? This trial is all about his actual state of mind.”
Lucas urged the jury to keep an open mind and not “rush to judgment”.
“There are two sides to every story,” he reminded them.
The trial continues tomorrow.
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast, A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz