Johdeci Te Kani has pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter over the death of passenger Fabien Takerei-White (inset) in a car crash in 2022. Composite image.
Johdeci Te Kani has pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter over the death of passenger Fabien Takerei-White (inset) in a car crash in 2022. Composite image.
A teen driver was travelling at more than 130km/h with his mate in the passenger seat when he lost control, hit a bank, and rolled the car.
Johdeci Te Kani, 17, had been drinking, had cannabis in his system, and was driving a Toyota Starlet with one functioningheadlight and worn rear brakes.
The Rotorua teen was driving in convoy, along State Highway 33, with another car full of teenagers about 3am on December 21, 2022 when the two cars lost control “almost simultaneously”.
While the other car spun, hit a bank and stopped, Te Kani’s car, after hitting the bank, rolled and ended up upside down in the middle of the northbound lane.
Now, in the High Court at Rotorua, Te Kani has pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the death of his passenger.
On March 16, 2026, in the High Court at Rotorua, Johdeci Te Kani pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
Drinking, drugs, and early-hours driving
The court heard Te Kani and a group of mates had been at a house on Hamurana Rd, Rotorua, and, by about 3am, were making their way in two cars to Tauranga.
They’d all been drinking alcohol, and Te Kani only had a learner driver’s licence.
The car he was drivinghad one functioning headlight, worn rear brakes, and its right front tyre was worn on the inner edge and below warrant of fitness standards.
When the two cars left Hamurana Rd, the Starlet was in front, and a passenger in the following vehicle described Te Kani’s manner of driving as “speeding up on the straights and then slowing down on the corners where he would wait for the second vehicle to catch up”.
The Starlet was estimated, based on the yaw marks left behind, to be travelling between 134km/h and 141km/h at the time it lost control.
A blood specimen found Te Kani had 57mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, and was within the high-risk range of cannabis.
The police summary of facts noted Te Kani’s blood alcohol level was taken about four hours after the incident, and would have “certainly been higher” at the time of the crash.
The car had extensive damage, including the driver’s seat being bent rearward and inward, the front passenger’s seat bent rearward, and the top of the windscreen and front of the roof collapsed inward.
Te Kani had pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, and a High Court trial was due to begin this morning.
However, Te Kani, who is now 20, admitted the charge in court today, where Justice Simon Mount acknowledged “the important step” he had taken.
Justice Mount also acknowledged the presence of Takerei-White’s whānau and Te Kani’s whānau in court, and the “tragic circumstances”.
Fabian Takerei-White, 18, died in a crash on State Highway 33 on December 21, 2022.
Te Kani’s lawyer, Max Simpkins, asked for a referral to be made to restorative justice.
He did not seek bail for his client, but did ask for a pre-sentence report to include appendices, which would look at home detention options, though he said he recognised the sentence was unlikely to fall within home detention range, even with the defendant’s youth taken into account.
Simpkins indicated he was likely to be seeking alcohol and drug reports, and possibly a cultural report, before sentencing in April.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
