Driver of van which killed horse describes 'scary moment'

A delivery driver who struck and killed a horse on a highway at night near Murchison has told a court it was a scary moment. Stock image / 123RF

"It was a thud. I really felt it."

The driver of a newspaper delivery van who hit and killed a horse on a state highway has described the moment of impact as being "very scary".

"I tried to swerve but hit it. It was a thud. I really felt it," driver Joseph Martin told a court today.

Martin was giving evidence at a hearing in the Nelson District Court, over a couple charged with causing criminal nuisance for allegedly failing to properly fence a property.

Murchison couple Luke King and Emma Polaschek had earlier admitted a charge of endangering life or public safety after the accident which wrote off Martin's van on July 13, 2020, but later vacated the plea.

The trial, heard by a judge alone, has now been adjourned to late June to decide if there is a case to answer.

It was the depths of winter and Martin was doing the late-night newspaper and mail run between Christchurch and Nelson. He'd left Christchurch at 10.30pm and at about 3am on July 13, he was between Murchison and Springs Junction, travelling at 98km/h. He noticed a shadow, switched his lights on high beam, and noticed a horse.

Martin said in a split-second the horse which had been on the left of his van, was suddenly in front of him.

"It felt like the horse was galloping towards me," he said in response to why he hadn't stopped.

After the impact with the large horse he described as "having a chest bigger than mine", Martin stopped, put on his hazard lights and walked back to find the animal dead on the side of the road.

The horse was later described by a neighbouring farmer, who gave evidence at the hearing, as a Clydesdale.

"It was pitch black but I could see it was wearing a coat, like a tarpaulin," Martin said.

There was no cell phone coverage in the area, so Martin waved down a following vehicle, and was driven back to Murchison where he phoned his employer, and the police were then contacted.

The defence revolved around the state of the fences on the couple's property, if the horse had come from there, or whether poachers which were known to sometimes be in the area, might have allowed the horse to escape.

Officer in charge, constable Josiah Young of the Murchison police told the court that King and Polaschek had been given verbal warnings and a formal written warning about stock getting off the property and on to the road, prior to the accident. He said the fencing was not sufficient to keep in a horse.

Murchison farmer Luke King. Photo / Supplied

"The fence is the smoking gun," he said in answer to a question from Polaschek's lawyer Steven Zindel.

"I could have stepped over it myself and I'm no Clydesdale," Young said.

King's lawyer John Sandston said that may or may not be the case but queried if he had checked for hoof prints near the fence to prove where the horse might have come from.

Young said he hadn't, but it was not uncommon for stock to be on the road in the area, which he explained presented a crash risk to road users.

Martin told the court that he had come across stock on the highway several times and over the years had learned to "watch out for black spots on the road" at night.

When questioned earlier by Zindel, Martin agreed it would have been impossible to say for sure where exactly the horse had come from and how far it might have travelled.

Retired farmer Neil Terrill, who sold the couple the block of land in April 2019 and who lived across the road from them, had on occasion helped them return escaped stock to paddocks.

He believed King and Polaschek owned nine horses before the accident, with "eight left afterwards".

Murchison dairy farmer Peter McLaren, who was also called as a witness, said most locals knew to drive carefully in the area as there was often stock loose.

He said King had asked his son to borrow a tractor to help move the dead horse, and returned a couple of days later with a few beers when he said it was "probably poachers who left the gate open".

McLaren told Sandston there were poachers in the area, but they didn't go near the Terrill property, and while the fence was not tight on King's property, like it should have been, it would have most likely been cut if poachers were involved.

Sandston asked if the fencing might have been stretched to allow poachers to get something like a pig through it, to which McLaren replied, "you'd have to catch the pig first".

Young said that between 2019 and 2020 he had seen stock outside the couple's property "about 10 times", and that he had often discussed the need for them to improve fencing.

He said efforts had been made to improve the situation, including to address problems with their pigs escaping into the neighbouring property.

Young told Judge Jo Rielly he had spent time with Polaschek walking the fenceline after the accident, and while she was upset over the loss of a favoured pet, he could not recall exactly what was said about how it might have happened.

Judge Rielly said in adjourning the case that it presented a "unique set of facts" and was of a type not frequently before the court.

The defence would now file submissions on whether there was a case to answer. A no case submission was made when the defence considered that the prosecution case did not support a finding of guilt.