Driver who crashed into house discharged from hospital

An 86-year-old driver, whose car ploughed into a house on Auckland's North Shore, killing an elderly man, has been discharged from hospital.

Police said the man was shaken and upset about the incident, but was helping police.

The 88-year-old man who was killed when the car crashed into his bedroom yesterday was a former prison chaplain credited with saving the lives of hundreds criminals.

Reverend Lawrence "Lawrie" More was in his bedroom in Northcross, on Auckland's North Shore, when the car left the road and plunged down a steep incline, crashing through the house.

His wife Adrienne rushed to the bedroom to find the car in the room and her husband lying on the floor.

An off-duty police officer gave CPR but could not revive him.

Mr More was a prison chaplain in some of New Zealand's toughest prisons, including Mt Eden and Auckland Maximum Security Prison at Paremoremo in the 1960s to the 1980s, The Dominion Post reported.

Author Marie Gray, who wrote Mr More's biography, said he touched hundreds of lives.

"Even now in Mt Eden Prison and Paremoremo you've only got to mention Lawrie More and people will say, 'Oh, I knew that guy'," she said.

"He was a man who had a tremendous love for people. If a prostitute called him, or a person in need phoned him, he would go to help them even right across town at two in the morning."

He was living with his wife in a downstairs flat, underneath the home of his daughter and her husband.

The police serious crash unit and strategic traffic unit were investigating.

- NZPA