Promising jockey Ngakau Hailey, inset, was killed while doing a wheel-stand through a Hamilton intersection after Amal Salad failed to give way. Photos / NZME / Belinda Feek
Tensions ran high at the sentencing of a motorist who fatally struck an 18-year-old doing a wheelie on a dirt bike at an intersection.
Amal Salad, 40, had earlier admitted careless driving causing the death of jockey Ngakau Sonny Bill Hailey.
However, Hailey’s whānau claimed a late change to the police summary of facts – to include reference to the wheelie – was Salad’s attempt to deflect blame.
“She doesn’t understand our road rules because if she did, Ngakau would still be here,” Hailey’s grandmother, Linda Gough, said through tears at yesterday’s hearing in the Hamilton District Court.
The courtroom friction began before the hearing, as Hailey’s family argued with security over the amount of seating they were allowed.
Given the tight space, the families were each allocated half of the public gallery.
During the hearing, an emotional Gough claimed in her victim impact statement that Salad had tried to hold up the court proceedings.
“I don’t understand how a woman who held proceedings up for six months, claiming she didn’t speak a word of English, is allowed to be driving on our roads.”
Gough told Community Magistrate Ngaire Mascelle, through her statement, that Salad did not understand the road rules.
She claimed Salad had got police to alter the summary to try to take the spotlight off her actions. During his sentencing submissions, defence lawyer Glen Prentice told the court he had sought the addition, not Salad.
Several of Hailey’s whānau read their victim impact statements, detailing how their lives had been upended by his sudden death.
His mother told Salad that she would never forgive her.
“And I will never forget ... I will carry this grief for the rest of my life,” she said.
The court heard that on July 9 last year, Salad was travelling east on Mill St in Hamilton at 3.27pm.
At the same time, Hailey, 18, was travelling west.
The pair were nearing the light-controlled intersection with Willoughby St.
Salad was travelling about 20km/h and about to turn right.
She had the green light, but was required to give way to oncoming traffic.
Hailey came through the intersection on his dirt bike while performing a wheel-stand, travelling at between 53 and 57km/h.
As Salad turned, Hailey crashed into the left rear of her car. He died of his injuries in Waikato Hospital.
Prentice said the crash was a “tragic accident that the defendant did not intend”.
“She [Salad] is somebody who has lived in New Zealand for 24 years.
“She’s a New Zealand citizen. She is, in all other respects, a law-abiding citizen.
“While I understand the anger and frustration that the family feel ... it is important to understand that she is for sentencing on carelessness ... and it should never be suggested anything else.”
He said Salad simply misjudged Hailey coming towards her.
Prentice submitted it was “entirely appropriate” for police to amend the summary of facts to acknowledge the wheelstand.
Prentice said he had pursued the addition, not Salad.
“And it was entirely appropriate that I did that,” before adding that Salad had pleaded guilty at her first court appearance.
He said the court knew “all too well” there was a problem with people riding dirt bikes around, not only Hamilton but “all over the country”.
“He decided to ride through that intersection on one wheel ... it is a logical inference to draw, and to invite Your Worship to draw, that if somebody is riding a motorcycle on one wheel and they collide with somebody else, they have put themself in a very vulnerable position.”
Prentice said Salad accepted she failed to give way, and he urged Magistrate Mascelle to also consider Hailey’s driving.
“I don’t mean to upset people, the reality is that ... had he been riding that motorcycle on two wheels, he may well have been able to avoid this accident,” Prentice submitted, leading to an eruption from the public gallery.
“Ohhh,” one said. While Gough yelled: “He went 30 feet up in the air, 30 feet.”
“That is the reality of the situation,” Prentice continued.
“Unfortunately, he was in an upright position and was swerving in the lane and was unable to really control the situation.”
Prentice said but for Hailey’s manner of driving, “this situation may well have been different”.
He urged the magistrate to hand down a sentence of community work, together with $4500 emotional harm reparation.
But police prosecutor Brendan Mills asked the magistrate to exercise a degree of caution when analysing the police serious crash report, which detailed Hailey riding on one wheel through the intersection.
He told her Salad should have given way before turning.
“It’s clearly incumbent on Ms Salad, as with any driver, to anticipate and take the traffic as they find it in that particular moment in time,” Mills submitted.
“To take the traffic as it comes and drive accordingly.
“She’s failed in that regard.”
Magistrate Mascelle found that Salad’s driving was in the moderate to serious category.
That was partly because of her comments in a pre-sentence report, which contradicted earlier statements in which she’d said she hadn’t seen Hailey before the impact.
“That doesn’t appear to be the case.”
She stated that the traffic light was green, and while acknowledging there was a requirement for her to give way, she said there was a gap in the traffic, and she assumed it was safe to turn.
Salad also believed Hailey was travelling much faster than what the police had determined.
“That comment also supports that you had seen him,” the magistrate said.
“So it’s important not to lose sight of the causative factor of the accident, which is quite simply, that you failed to give way to Ngakau.”
The magistrate said a careful and prudent driver would have waited a moment.
“It was a momentary incident of poor judgment with obviously catastrophic consequences.”
She sentenced Salad to 180 hours of community work and four months of community detention.
Salad was also disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay $4500 emotional harm reparation and $143 in court costs.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.