KEY POINTS:
A 17-year-old has begun a five-year prison term after his drunken dash from police in a stolen car ended with a crash that killed one close friend and injured another.
Michael Raymond Norton's name suppression was lifted in the High Court today.
He had suppression until now because the chase and crash happened two days before he turned 17 and he had been dealt with in the Youth Court.
Justice Graham Panckhurst was told that although Norton left his injured and dying passengers at the scene, he had taken responsibility almost immediately in a statement to the police, and pleaded guilty early to a manslaughter charge.
He had restorative justice meetings with the mother of the dead girl - 16-year-old Paige Patricia Timothy - and the parents of the injured girl, also aged 16.
The first meeting arranged with Paige's mother had been cancelled by Social Welfare staff at the last minute because they feared it might not be safe, defence counsel Siobhan McNulty told the court.
Norton was also disqualified from driving for 4-1/2 years.
The crash happened when he did not hold a licence and was on bail on other charges. He said he made his high-speed dash from the police "because that's what I do".
Norton, who is unemployed and has an alcohol abuse problem, backed a car out of a driveway at a Redwood address. It had been parked there with the keys inside.
He was then seen driving erratically along the Main North Road about 9.30pm on March 20 and was pursued into Styx Mill Road.
The pursuing police car reached a speed of 150km/h and Norton's car was still pulling ahead.
He said he turned his headlights off to get away.
At the T-intersection ahead, he went straight on with the car hitting a tree, going down a bank and coming to rest in the Styx River.
While his passengers were badly injured - one had fatal head injuries and died next day, and the other was in a coma for a time - Norton was unscathed and ran off. He was found about 400m away.
Miss McNulty said it had been instinct for him to run. Afterwards, he found it possibly the most distressing aspect that he had left his injured friends at the scene.
Justice Panckhurst said Norton had an "awful record" of previous offending. He had not had an easy start in life. He had been in foster care, and had been subject to a care and protection order.
He had attention deficit disorder, had been expelled from school, and had on-going problems with substance abuse.
He had shown progress when in residential care, but this had not lasted when he was released into the community.
As Norton stood in the dock to receive his five-year sentence, Justice Panckhurst told him: "Mr Norton, this case impresses me as almost as bad as it gets."
Norton had written a letter to the court for an earlier session and it had been referred to the High Court. In it, he wrote of how he was "the cause of my girl Paige's death".
"Paige was a primo chick. It's an empty feeling knowing she's gone," he said.
- NZPA
