The call all parents dread

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE and SCOTT MacLEOD

No way were Ian and Jane Laurie letting their younger son out of their sight on New Year's Eve.

After all the publicity about drink-driving and youthful antics at neighbouring Whangamata, the Waihi couple did not want 15-year-old Harry getting into any trouble.

"We made sure he stayed with us," said Mrs Laurie.

The teenager welcomed in 2004 at a private function, listening to his brother Stephen, 19, playing with his band, Sact.

"Harry had a really cool night," his mother said. "I'm glad of that."

The next evening he went out with friends and, in the early hours of yesterday, was killed by a fence railing when the car in which he was a passenger sped away from police and crashed.

Police say the latest death in a police car chase had more to do with alcohol than methods used to catch fleeing drivers.

The Waihi boy was the eleventh person in the past year to be killed during or just after a police chase - the worst spate of pursuit deaths since records began 25 years ago.

Eastern Waikato's area commander, Acting Inspector John Kelly, said traffic patrol officers saw two cars driving the wrong way down Waihi's one-way main street, Rosemont Rd, at 1.30am yesterday.

The officers turned on their car's flashing lights, but not its siren, when the cars were 150m away.

One of the cars sped off at about 70km/h in the 50km/h area.

It travelled 600m before its driver lost control on a slight bend, left the road and smashed into a fence.

Mr Kelly said Harry, the front seat passenger, was wearing a seatbelt, but a railing went through the windscreen and killed him.

Two teenagers in the back seat, a male and a female, were not seriously injured.

John Alastair Douglas, 17, was charged with manslaughter after the crash. He was remanded on bail without plea at Hamilton District Court and will appear in his home town court on January 15.

"It all happened in a blink," Mr Kelly said.

"We're not going to split hairs over whether it was or wasn't a chase. For us, it's another incident with alcohol, young people and vehicles."

A group of teenage girls who knew Harry were in the Roberts St house outside which the crash happened, and were woken by sirens.

"I thought it was a nightmare, then I woke up and it was," said one.

Harry's father, Ian Laurie, said the second of their two children was a "mad keen fisherman".

Harry had gone surfcasting on Christmas Eve and brought home a seafood meal for the family.

He did the same on Boxing Day for his mother's birthday.

"It is not the sort of phone call you want to get early in the morning of January 2," said Mrs Laurie.

"Harry was Harry - a real free spirit. He was full of life and lived it to the max."

Late yesterday, the Lauries were preparing to visit the family of the young driver. "It was Harry's second home," said Mr Laurie, "so they will be devastated, too."

- additional reporting: NZPA