'I want my mum'

Matthew Kennedy. Photo / Doug Sherring

Matthew Kennedy may one day work out why one of New Zealand's worst drink drivers was able to get behind the wheel and kill his mum.

But at the moment all the five-year-old wants is for his mother, Katherine, to be with him.

The Kerikeri woman, known as Rin by her family, was killed by drink driver Warren John Jenkins, 49, of Orewa, on March 17 on SH10 near Kerikeri.

He had 17 previous drink-driving convictions and 19 for driving while disqualified. He was nearly double the legal alcohol limit when his Nissan Navara ploughed into Kennedy's Volkswagon Polo on a sedate bend.

He pleaded guilty in the Auckland District Court this week and was remanded in custody for sentencing next month.

It is the second car crash tragedy to hit the family. In 1988, Rin's mother Eleanor, was killed in a crash.

Brother Chris Kennedy and his wife Sarah, who have taken Matthew in with their three children, said going through another tragedy was tough.

"It is a shame to lose two members of your family. My mum was really strong and special too. So to lose two is hard," he said.

Chris and Sarah Kennedy blame the death as much on the justice system as Jenkins.

They can't understand why he was free with 17 previous convictions.

"You feel really let down by the system. That's why I am doing this (interview). If we felt the justice system had done it's job we wouldn't be here talking," he said.

"We knew he was recidivist but we didn't know it was 17 times, I mean that is ridiculous. I mean what are they waiting for? Are they saying 'keep doing it till you kill someone?' Now he has."

A surgeon phoned shortly after Kennedy was taken to Whangarei Hospital.

"We were told there wasn't much hope. She had three fatal injuries - head and stuff. She had basically been rubbed out. I mean the fact she was alive was a sign just how gritty she was," said Chris Kennedy.

On the way to hospital they got another phone call to say she had died. They didn't tell Matthew.

"We decided we would wait till we arrived so we could give him a hug you know. Then we told him. He cried. He has his head on her bed just crying for quite a while - it seemed like ages.

"We had to pull him away in the end - it wasn't the nicest thing to see."

Matthew often asks about his mother.

"I wish my mum wasn't dead," he tells Sarah Kennedy.

Says Chris Kennedy: "That's what he says a lot. 'I wish my mum hadn't died'.

"We often try and include Rin in conversations like ... 'this is what your mum used to do' or we'd say 'your mum would be proud of you'."

Sarah Kennedy said the drink driving laws were not strong enough.

"There is no deterrent, if you continue to drink and drive and know that you're not going get anything more than a slap on the wrist then you won't stop."

Rin Kennedy worked in Japan and Europe, including portrait painting in Italy.

She had her own fashion label - MAD and Joie de Vivre - and Shortland Street actors wore her clothes during the 1990s.