No conviction for dad who ran over son in driveway

Friday, 17 May 2024

The partner of the man who accidentally ran over their son in the driveway of their Upper Hutt home pleaded for there to be no more punishment and the judge agreed.

Her sister read out her victim impact statement on Friday to Hutt Valley District Court judge Barbara Morris,

“I don’t blame him or hold him accountable,” the judge was told.

The five-year-old had died in January and charges were only laid many months later.

“Nothing can punish him harsher than what he will do to himself for the rest of his life,” his partner had written.

Pregnant with another child, she said she needed him to have his licence to be able to drive her, and for his business that supported them financially.

The man had initially faced a charge of dangerous driving causing death but the charge was downgraded to careless use of a motor vehicle causing death — which carries a maximum of three months jail and a disqualification.

His lawyer Shane Robinson asked Judge Morris for him to be discharged without conviction, to have permanent name suppression and for him not to be disqualified from driving.

He said there was nothing the court could do that could overcome the tragedy that had already happened.

Judge Morris said each night when he came home, his bouncy five-year-old would go running out to help his dad put the rubbish in the skip.

She said his son would stand on the back of the van and hold on, and then the father would proceed very slowly, past the lounge window so he could wave to his family inside.

“When he would get to the lounge the five-year-old would jump off and go inside and when he would look behind, he would see his son was not on the van then he would reverse in to park it.”

She said tragically, on January 16 last year, he would see that his son was not there but unbeknownst to him had slipped off and when he reversed his own son was killed.

The judge said it created insurmountable grief and anguish for the family.

People who knew him saw him as a broken and self-loathing man now, she said.

Judge Morris discharged him without conviction saying: “It (the conviction) won’t let him move forward, it will come with him all the time.”

She also refused to disqualify him from driving and granted him permanent name suppression.

SafeKids Aotearoa, run by Starship, said there were on average five child deaths and more than 20 children hospitalised each year from driveway accidents.

Nearly 70% of accidents were from reversing and 49% of drivers were parents while 17% were another relative.

Sixty-six percent of children were under 2 and accidents were more likely to happen in spring and summer months.