Flowers are left among debris where Thomas Manawaiti crashed. Photo / File
Thomas Manawaiti's partner had a premonition something was wrong.
She heard the sound of a car and looked out the window to see her partner ''flying'' past at high speed in their Subaru Legacy with police chasing behind.
About an hour later, police knocked on her door and told her he had flipped his car on Malfroy Rd and suffered critical head injuries. He died the next day.
Manawaiti was only a few hundred metres from his Rotorua home when police tried to pull him over for speeding.
Instead of stopping that night on November 1, 2018, he put his foot down and led police on a high-speed chase that lasted one minute and 40 seconds. He led police around a loop of Fordlands twice before going on to Malfroy Rd.
With police about 250m behind him and out of sight, Manawaiti lost control after rounding a bend on Malfroy Rd.
His car slid, went through two boundary fences, became airborne and flipped several times before coming to rest on its roof, not far from the Westend Shopping Centre.
The 24-year-old suffered massive head injuries and his devastated family turned off his life support the next night.
Details about Manawaiti's death can now be revealed for the first time after a coroner's finding was released to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend.
Until now, Manawaiti's name had been suppressed while an investigation was carried out.
Manawaiti was described in the finding as a young man who was taking responsibility for his future and his family, including two children aged 3 and 2, and his partner.
He was making the most of his passion for cars and was working as a self-employed mechanic working his Bellingham Cres home.
"His natural talents, ethics and hard work were paying off with early success in his business," Coroner Donna Llewell's finding said.
He had a growing reputation for his mechanical skills in New Zealand and abroad and was known to undertake work and anything needed to help his whānau with diligence and care, the finding said.
His parents separated when he was 6 and in his adult life, he was determined to be an attentive and present father and a good role model for his family, the finding said.
"He was described as quietly spoken and kind."
Manawaiti had two traffic-related convictions from 2015 in Te Kuiti when he was charged with reckless driving and failing to stop for police. The chase was abandoned but Manawaiti later admitted he was the driver and was under the influence of alcohol.
At the time of his crash in 2018, Manawaiti's licence was in "reinstate" status which meant he had not renewed it - which he could have done from August - after earlier being suspended for excess demerit points.
On the day, Manawaiti caught up with one of his partner's cousins. They stopped at a liquor store and returned to Manawaiti's home to have a few drinks while he worked on one of the cars in his garage.
About 9.50pm Manawaiti left in his Subaru Legacy station wagon to take his partner's cousin home to Pukeko St.
When he wasn't home an hour later, his partner knew something was wrong and texted her cousin. He replied at 10.51pm and said Manawaiti should have been home by now, the finding said.
She heard a car's engine outside and police sirens and ran to the window to see "Thomas in our car flying with a police car behind him", the finding said.
She tried to find someone to look after her children and later called the police station to see if he had been arrested.
About midnight, police arrived at her home and she instantly knew it was bad news.
The finding said the police lost sight of Manawaiti's car three times during the high-speed 3.8km chase and weren't able to get its registration number.
A resident who lived at one of the properties where he crashed had CCTV footage of the dramatic crash, which was published by the Rotorua Daily Post not long after the crash.
Coroner Llewell has now permanently suppressed the publication of that video footage.
Manawaiti was found unconscious, breathing erratically and had extensive injuries. He was airlifted to Waikato Hospital and in the presence of his whānau his life support was turned off at 9.55pm the next day.
A Serious Crash Unit report found Manawaiti was likely to have been travelling at 111km/h in the 50km/h area at the time of the crash.
Two samples of Manawaiti's blood were taken, one found it was 47 milligrams per 100 millilitres in the blood and the other found it was between 75 to 120 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit is 50 milligrams. No illegal drugs were found in his system.
Coroner Llewell said it was likely his blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit and this was a contributing factor in the crash, along with excessive speed.
The coroner said there was no evidence to explain why Manawaiti chose to flee police that night.
However, she said it could be inferred that had he stopped, he might have faced another driving offence, demerit points, compromised the status of his licence and might have been driving over the legal blood alcohol limit.
The finding noted a joint police and Independent Police Conduct Authority review in 2017 of police pursuits found 3796 drivers fled police and police abandoned 2105 of them.
Despite that, 626 still ended in a crash - 180 of which occurred after the chase had been abandoned. These crashes results in 101 minor injuries, 57 serious injuries and 12 fatalities.
Coroner Llewell said while police were still reviewing their processes, it didn't mean the police's decision to chase Manawaiti on that night was improper, without good cause or was in breach of the law, policy or procedure.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority did not carry out an investigation because it was not required to do so.
Coroner's Llewell's finding said all police chases that ended in death were reported to the authority and it was standard practice for police to provide a report, which then determined whether a formal investigation should take place.
The finding quoted an email from the Independent Police Conduct Authority that said there was one policy breach - which was the officer didn't tell the communications dispatcher a reason for the pursuit. The email said this made no difference to the overall pursuit outcome.
He was the love of her life and the best dad to their children.
But the partner of Thomas Manawaiti has one burning question: "I'll never understand why he didn't stop."
The partner, who didn't want her name or their children's names published, said Manawaiti wasn't the biological father of their eldest daughter but as soon as the pair got together in 2015, he considered her his own.
Through tears, she told the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend their now 7-year-old girl still cried for her dad.
"He was a good man and he was a fantastic dad too," she said.
She laughed a little when she said "he had been in love with me since I was 14" and finally won her heart six years later in 2015.
She said although they had always been friends, she changed her mind romantically about him because she "grew up" and realised he was the one.
She said seeing the police at the door of their home was the most horrible feeling and she just knew bad news was to follow.
"If he'd just been arrested they wouldn't have turned up on the doorstep."
She had a message for anyone who contemplated fleeing police.
"Just stop. It's not worth it. It's not worth putting your family through having to bury you over a ticket or an impound."
• Police will only chase fleeing drivers if there is a threat before the start of the pursuit and if there is a need for the driver to be apprehended immediately.
• There has been no change to police policy but it was "rephrased" at the end of last year so officers can follow it more consistently and accurately.
• It followed a joint review with the Independent Police Conduct Authority last year, which found that while the policy was sound, it wasn't being used consistently or as it should be.
• Figures show more than 30,000 police pursuits were initiated between 2008 and 2019, resulting in hundreds of crashes and 79 deaths.
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