Driver admits causing death of girlfriend

A train goes through the Wiltons Road crossing where Carterton 15-year-old Grace Ellen Diedrichs died in a vehicle collision with a commuter train last year.

A young man who crashed his ute into the side of a Wairarapa commuter train, killing his girlfriend, has changed his plea to guilty on a reduced charge.

Jonathan Caleb Painter, 18, from Mangatainoka, appeared in the Wellington District Court on Tuesday.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated careless use of a motor vehicle causing the death of Grace Ellen Diedrichs, 15.

On February 17, 2013, the Carterton schoolgirl was killed when the ute in which she was a passenger, driven by Painter, struck the side of a southbound commuter train at the Wiltons Rd crossing in Carterton.

She was flung 20m from the vehicle and died at the scene. Painter was taken to the Wairarapa Hospital high dependency unit with head injuries.

Last year Painter pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving causing death.

At the time, through his lawyer, he had sought to have the charge lowered to careless driving as the cause of the crash.

Painter will be sentenced next month.