How four lives ended senselessly

On the last evening of Che Orbell's life, he cooked dinner for his 1st XV rugby coach.

It was the night before a game for Che, and even though he was the smallest player on the Karamu High team, the gritty first five was a tough competitor.

He was heading out after work to catch up with his friends. It was a big night - the eve of the school ball, an event which this year had special significance.

Some ball-goers were planning to wear blue bandanas as a tribute to their mate Stephen Temperton, whose death two weeks earlier in a car crash had already rocked the close-knit circle.

"We were joshing together all night," said coach Richard Saunders. "We actually left [at the same time, about 10pm Friday] and I said to him, 'Don't be late tomorrow'. And he just said, 'Don't worry, I won't'."

Che never made it. Just an hour later he was driving the turbo-charged 1990 Mazda Familia, owned by Ricky Moulder, 16, who, unusually, was travelling as a passenger.

Heading down Winsdor Ave reportedly at speeds of up to 130km/h, Che swerved to overtake a car.

The car hit a lamppost - plunging the area into darkness - then a totara tree. Che and friends Dylan Scott Brittin, 16, Michael Neil Jeffries, 16 and Alex Scales, 14 died instantly.

Ricky, 16, and Jaydden Brittin, 15, were left critically injured in hospital.

Neighbours on the street, which is frequented by boy racers, say they heard the turbo long before they saw the car. Win Heuser, who was entertaining friends, had already seen the car go by. He would later tell police it was travelling about 130 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. "I said to my guests 'those boys will not die in bed'," said Mr Heuser. "A few minutes later, it crashed." If only, says Mr Heuser, he had had his cellphone with him, he would have called the police. "It could have saved their lives."

Andrew Taputoro, 19, lives immediately beside where the car hit. He and his friends, who were sitting in their lounge at the front of the house, heard the crash and rushed out.

"I walked out and went towards the car and tripped over one of the boys lying on the ground. I checked his pulse but he was dead. He was lying on his face, head down, blood pouring from his neck," Mr Taputoro says.

"There were bodies everywhere. Two out of the car, four in the car."

One, thought to be Jaydden Brittin, was alive and talking, still inside the car.

"He just said, 'What's happened?'I said, 'Are you alright?' He said,'I'm hurting. Help me, I'm hurt'."

A friend of Mr Taputoro's stood and held Jaydden's hand. Jaydden told her his hip and legs were hurting. He was lucid and was able to say his name and phone number. The girl dialled his mother for him. Peter Mason, who lives about 50m from the accident site, "heard a screech of tyres and a great thud". Driving the short distance to the accident, he turned his car lights on the scene. He could see one boy - now thought to be Ricky Moulder - thrown through a fence and another "looked run over".

He went to Jaydden, who was jammed between the tree and the car, with only one arm, his head and upper torso free of the wreck. "He said someone had pulled out in front of them and they had to swerve," he said.

Mr Mason said they spoke briefly before trying to clear wreckage from the road. He left as Jaydden made his phone call on the borrowed mobile phone. "The girl dialled it for him and held the phone up for him so he could make the call. He called his family. I don't know whether this guy is alive or dead. It might have been the last phone call he ever made."

Jaydden was still fighting for his life yesterday afternoon, and was scheduled to undergo heart surgery at 3pm.

Inside the car, the three remaining boys were piled on top of each other. A police officer arriving at the wreck found a cellphone inside. The phone carried a message - "Are you alright" - sent by a friend who had heard about the accident.

The police officer called the number back to ask who the phone belonged to. In this way, a teenager learned one of his friends had died.

Debris from the crash - including a wallet, a Tui label and a Jim Beam label, the car's horn and glass from the windshield - spread as far as 17 metres away, and cut a sliver out of the front window of Taputoro's home.

The car bore a commemorative sticker: "In loving memory of Stephen Temperton 1987-2005. RIP Tings (Stephen's nickname)."

In the back of the car a box of Tui had been flattened and broken bottles were spread around the scene, Mr Taputoro said. "It smelt like beer, alcohol and petrol."

Within an hour, 80-100 kids had gathered in the street, some shouting abuse at emergency services and residents of neighbouring houses. In the morning, more teenagers arrived.

The dead boys had been out driving and were heading to the Brittin's family home to keep drinking, said Trent Baldock, 18. Che Orbell was driving because - unlike the others - he had not been drinking, he said.

There were tears and tributes. Che was "cheeky", they said, and Dylan was "a pretty boy", said Trent.

Che was not a boy racer, his friends said. "Che was not that sort of person, he was a bit of a nana driver really," said 1st XV team mate Peter Wilson, 18.

Zoe Knight, 18, ex-girlfriend of elder brother Kade Brittin, spent most of Friday night at the hospital with the Brittin family. Kade was a pall-bearer at Temperton's funeral. He had now lost a best mate and his brother.

Jaydden was studying hospitality at the Eastern Institute of Technology where Dylan was doing a mechanic's apprenticeship. Che was still at school and was studying through FutureCol to be a chef. Moulder worked for Amalgamated Roofers.

Alex Scales, the youngest of the group, was still at school. His parents recently moved from the Hawke's Bay to open a hotel on Waiheke Island. Michael Jeffries worked in the timber department at Tumu Building Centre.

Warren Temperton, Stephen's father, said his family had grown close to the Brittins while neighbours. After Stephen was killed, early on the morning of July 17, Darren Brittin and wife Sonya were one of the first to visit.

The car the teenagers died in had been bought two years earlier. Ricky's father Jeff Moulder paid $6,500 for the Mazda Familia, which was already "tricked", with a boosted engine, mags and a large exhaust.

Friends of Ricky revealed yesterday the vehicle had been driven at speeds up to 240 km/h - something its previous owner Adam Harrap confirmed it was capable of: "I've had it at that."

Since Mr Harrap had owned the car, Ricky Moulder had made further modifications. Karamu High School principal Mike Purcell said the tragedy had shocked the staff and was a "great loss" for the school. Coach Richard Saunders, who ate the last dinner Che cooked, said when they took the field next week the game would be dedicated to Che. Yesterday, the team performed a haka for their deceased friends. "It was the best haka I've ever seen them perform. It was so awesome, so emotional. This one made me cry."

- Herald on Sunday