Motorcyclist Shane Skinner, hit by teen driver, upset at police handling of his case

Motorcyclist Shane Skinner, who suffered multiple injuries when he was hit by a teenage driver last year, says he feels as though his case has been discarded. Photo / 123rf

By Finn Blackwell of RNZ

A Canterbury crash victim says he feels left out of the justice process after he was hit by a teenage driver last year.

Shane Skinner was riding his motorbike on State Highway 1 just out of Rakaia last year when he was hit from behind, sending him into an oncoming truck.

He suffered internal bleeding, a broken pelvis, five breaks in his left leg and numerous broken ribs.

Six-months on, Skinner felt as though his case, which he believed could be learned from, had been discarded.

“Any time I need to get something from the police, it’s me phoning them,” he said.

“Like, ‘What’s your process from the time someone gets run down, to the time the person that did the running down is told their case is closed?’

“It just sort of struck me that something so serious that was a near fatality and something that you could learn from, is just discarded.”

The person who hit Skinner was 17 at the time of the crash. They were ordered through the youth justice process to complete a defensive driving course, pay a $200 donation to St John, and were disqualified from driving until late January of this year.

Skinner said he was yet to receive a written apology or an admission of guilt from the person, and he was upset police had closed the matter without a resolution.

“There are set things they have to do, the interest and wellbeing of the child, the public interest, and public safety need to be addressed, the interests of the victim needs to be addressed, and the young person has to be held accountable for their behaviour,” he said.

“There’s just a silence, to be honest, it’s a vacuum... I have not seen [the police] apply the law.”

Skinner said being aware of the factors of the crash, like the fact the road was flooding and the person who hit him did not have their lights on, would make more of a difference than punishing the young person involved.

He said police reports failed to include details of the case, including what he believed to be apparent phone use by the offender.

“The young person is not that material in this,” he said. “Addressing these other things will actually have a material impact on a lot of people.”

RNZ asked police to respond to Skinner’s claims. They said his case had been referred to the IPCA which had now closed the matter, and that they had nothing further to add.

- RNZ