KEY POINTS:
The family of a woman killed in an accident with a suspected drunk driver spoke last night of their anger and loss.
Tara Groenestein, 36, of Auckland, was killed near Pukekohe as she was preparing for an equestrian event when a car driven by a 39-year-old woman ran through an intersection and struck her vehicle.
Police last night confirmed to the Herald on Sunday that they had told the family alcohol was a factor in the crash. The officer investigating the case did not want to comment further.
The accident comes amid police concerns about the escalating rate of drink driver prosecutions. A senior officer spoke this month of how police had caught 25,000 drink drivers a year during the 1990s - a figure that had risen to 29,000 a year.
And it comes with two other high-profile cases involving women drinking - the Whangarei mother charged with drink-driving with six children in her car, and an 18-year-old Auckland girl who won a discharge from her drink-driving charge so she could join the police with a clean record.
Tara's sister Rachel Groenestein said she had no words for the driver of the other car. "I just want her to look me in the face and see the damage she has done. I don't want to say anything to her.
"She's shattered our lives. I've lost a sister and I'm just watching my parents suffer."
"Tara wouldn't have hurt a fly, she's just gentle, caring, very quiet, kept to herself, loved her horses and family and loved my boys."
Jill Groenestein took the call every mother dreads, at 7pm on Friday. It was from the police saying Tara had been killed in a collision with a driver two and a half times over the blood/alcohol limit.
Jill Groenestein, a Cockle Bay mother and her husband Felix, a Manukau City policy analyst, had originally been told to race to Middlemore Hospital to see their daughter after an accident. But several minutes later police called back to say Tara had just passed away at the crash scene.
Police told the couple their daughter had been driving her car alone along the Pukekohe-Waiuku Rd at 6.15pm, when another car came out of a side road without stopping and drove into the right side of her vehicle. Tara's car was spun around and flung into a power pole.
Jill Groenestein said her single, independent daughter, who worked as an office administrator for IRL Furniture Manufacturers in East Tamaki, lived for horses.
"She's been involved with horses forever. She got her first pony at 9."
Tara competed at the Clevedon A&P show last weekend with her new horse Hector and won several ribbons and was looking forward to a two-day showhunter event this weekend in which she was organising and competing. It is understood Tara was picking up the prize money for the event when the accident happened.
"We aren't a big family but we are a really close family ... it's just torn us apart. It's made us think how special we really are to each other," Jill Groenestein said. "We watched her last weekend, it was the last time we saw her. She looked amazing, with her rosettes."
Felix Groenestein said identifying his daughter was the hardest thing he'd done: "I was a volunteer fire officer for 15 years - and I've seen some pretty bad crashes. You mentally switch off and do what has to be done. This time I'm on the other side of the fence - and I can't take that image out of my head.
"I walked into the room where she was lying and was just overcome. It is absolutely a waste of human life."
* In Whangarei yesterday, the young mother accused of drink driving at double the legal limit, with five unrestrained children in her car, said she had "no other choice". Trevina Rose Baker, 28, told the Herald on Sunday she was fleeing domestic violence at home.
