Drink-driver jailed over son's death

Trouble and calamity have dogged the life of Mt Maunganui mother Raquel Kiwi, who was jailed yesterday for causing the death of her baby boy while driving drunk.

In her 25 years, both her parents have died, a 12-year-old brother fell victim to cancer and, four years ago, another of her five children was the victim of a cot death.

Kiwi was sentenced by Judge Ian Thomas in the Tauranga District Court to 21 months' imprisonment on charges of causing 7-month-old son Jason Farrell's death and injuring four other people last April.

With a history of drug and alcohol abuse and three months in prison last year for fraud, the young woman had never had any counselling for her problems "or any help from anywhere," her upset grandmother, who did not want to be named, said outside the court.

Despite everything, Kiwi was "a very good mother," family members who gathered in support at the sentencing agreed.

"All the kids end up with her - all the nieces and nephews. She lets people take advantage of her. She's too kind."

Kiwi also cared for her young brother after their mother died.

At the couple's home later in the day, Ms Kiwi's partner of six years Tyrone Farrell - father of four of her children, including the two deceased - said he had been planning to catch the bus home on the fateful day their only son was killed.

But Kiwi had made a "last minute" decision to pick him up from his carpentry job in Tauranga at 4pm.

When she did not arrive on time, he took the bus anyway. Caught in the gridlock caused by a crash, he looked out the bus window and saw the wreckage of a Nissan Bluebird.

Not recognising it at first, he looked again and realised it was their car. "I jumped out of the bus."

On a borrowed mobile phone he rang Kiwi's grandmother, who rushed off to check who had been in the car.

A police escort was needed to get a desperate Mr Farrell to Tauranga Hospital because the accident had stalled traffic on all routes into the city for several hours. It was there he learned his son was dead.

Yesterday, as he cared for his little girls aged 5 and 2, Mr Farrell said he had told them where their mother was, and why.

They understood to the best of their ability and had coped without her while she was in custody previously.

Mr Farrell said the children missed their baby brother and their mother. He would take them to visit her in prison as often as he could afford to while they waited for a decision on a home detention application.

Kiwi's eldest child, a 7-year-old girl, lives with relatives.

Mr Farrell would like to see his partner receive counselling.

"Things can't get any worse - perhaps I shouldn't say that," he added ruefully.

The grandmother was angry about the widespread use of drugs in society, including by members of her own whanau.

"I hate drugs. They seem to be easy to get hold of and young people get sucked in."

Inside the courtroom yesterday Kiwi, long hair plaited on either side of her head, stood silently in the dock looking young and vulnerable.

Lawyer Craig Horsley said she acknowledged without question that she had drunk "a reasonable amount" of alcohol with family and friends at Mt Maunganui on April 22 last year. She had been driving earlier in the day with her young children in car seat restraints which had later been removed from the car.

When Kiwi suddenly remembered she had to pick up her partner from work in Tauranga, the children were asleep and she arranged to leave them there, he said.

She did not know one of three other young people who decided to go with her in the car heard baby Jason wake and uplifted him.

Mr Horsley said Kiwi was unaware her infant was in the car, let alone unrestrained on the lap of a passenger behind her. The first she knew Jason was there was after the car had crashed and he was dead.

The lawyer contended that Kiwi's speed on State Highway 29 as she drove toward Maungatapu was not grossly excessive. Due to the effects of alcohol (twice the legal limit) she misjudged the distance of the car in front as she prepared to pass, clipped its rear "and chaos ensued".

Her car then crossed the centreline into oncoming traffic. The impact which resulted in Jason's death also left Ms Kiwi and her three passengers injured, as was the driver of a car she slammed into.

Mr Horsley said Kiwi was genuinely remorseful and had to live with the consequences for the rest of her life.

Judge Thomas, sentencing her to 21 months in jail on one charge of driving with excess blood alcohol causing death and four of driving with excess blood alcohol causing injury, granted permission for Kiwi to apply for home detention.

"The reality of this was a human tragedy. There is nothing I can say to change that," the judge said.

Kiwi - who had pleaded guilty - needed help with a number of issues, he said.

He disqualified her from driving for three years.