French tourist to pay $19k before he can leave NZ after causing serious car crash

Photo / File

A French tourist who drove on the wrong side of the road, colliding with an oncoming car, must pay $19,000 to his victims before he can leave the country.

Stephane Yoan Mazerat was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court today for the January 5 crash which seriously injured his wife, himself and two women in the other car.

The court heard the 29-year-old research engineer drove on the right hand side of the road out of habit when he and wife Isabelle Mazerat left a service station at Awakino, an hour north east of New Plymouth.

The pair were on their honeymoon and had been in New Zealand two weeks when they smashed into Taranaki woman Maria Tairawhiti and her friend and two children on State Highway 3.

Mazerat and his wife were flown to Waikato Hospital with Mrs Mazerat suffering life threatening internal, spinal and nerve injuries.

She has endured 11 operations since and the couple were in hospital for almost two months.

Miss Tairawhiti and her passengers were taken to Taranaki Base Hospital were she was treated for chest injuries and broken bones.

Mazerat's lawyer Belinda Sellars said he was extremely remorseful for the accident which left him with numerous fractures and amnesia from a head injury.

He could not remember the crash, and appeared in court in a wheelchair.

However she said the young couple had mortgage commitments in France and were months away from returning to work because of the rehabilitation they both needed.

It meant that while Mazerat wanted to "make amends" for the crash, the couple would have to take a loan from his parents to pay the "generous" reparation costs agreed at a restorative justice conference yesterday.