Parents find comfort in forgiveness

Liz Neels

The anguished parents of a Cambridge teenager who died after a campervan driven by a Lions rugby supporter crashed into her car have met and forgiven the young man.

"It is another comfort to us. We have no animosity towards him," Michael Neels said yesterday, on the eve of the sentencing of James Berry.

Mr Neels and his wife, Lori, who lost their only child, Elizabeth, 18, do not want to see Berry jailed or "financially crippled with some huge fine".

But if Berry was to be released with no more than a "bad luck, my boy - hope you learned something by all this", then the wrong message would be going out, said Mr Neels.

The clear message was that it was not acceptable to drive when tired, he said.

Berry had arrived from Britain with two friends mid-morning on June 23. After a break at his sister's house in Auckland, they left about 4pm, intending to stop for the night at 10pm and catch the interisland ferry from Wellington the next day to get to Christchurch for the first Lions versus All Blacks test.

About 7.40pm, the campervan crossed the centre line on State Highway 1, near Karapiro, slamming into a car driven by Liz Neels, a student chef.

Despite the heart-wrenching memories, her parents' biggest comfort has been the donation of their daughter's organs to seven people waiting for transplants. But it is still hard for them to believe that the treasured child they took 12 years to conceive, who had left home only four months before the crash and was enjoying life, has gone.

"None of our hopes and concerns for her future have any further meaning," Mr Neels wrote in his victim impact report to go before the judge.

Alongside physical injuries, he put: "Two broken hearts."

After initial reluctance to meet Berry at a restorative justice confer ence, a deeply grieving Mr and Mrs Neels came to think of him as a victim too, "just in a completely different tragedy, connected only by Liz".

They thought they should take the opportunity before Berry returned to Wales. "We're glad we did."

Mr Neels doubted they could have faced him had he been a "boy-racer or a drunk driver" instead of an intelligent, sensitive young man with a promising future.

A nephew and Liz's two best friends accompanied the couple to the voluntary meeting, run by facilitators. Berry came alone.

"I have never seen a person so contrite as James when he walked into the conference room to meet us. Words were not needed to express how sorry he was for what had happened," said Mr Neels.

Berry expressed a wish to meet the Neels, appeared remorseful and even sent a card.

"It seemed that, in falling asleep [at the wheel], he had made a very human mistake with devastating consequences," Mr Neels said.

Mrs Neels showed Berry photographs of Liz and they gave him an [unsigned] card bearing her picture, copies of which have gone to all those who sent messages of sympathy.

The Neels are not sure how they will feel after the sentencing.

They want Berry to live a good life, both for himself and for Liz, and not carry her in his memory as a burden, rather "letting our Lizzie rest lightly on his soul".

No further communication was planned, said Mr Neels. "But if he wants to contact us in five years' time and let us know how he is doing, what his wife is like, I daresay we will show interest."

Berry has admitted charges of careless driving causing death and injury.

The 23-year-old accounting graduate from Swansea, in Wales, will learn his fate in the Hamilton District Court today.

Letter written from the heart

I cannot find it in my heart to personally wish James Berry harm. His being asleep at the time is almost as if he had diminished responsibility in Liz's death. Perhaps his crime was to be asleep in charge of a moving vehicle?

He made a pathetically human mistake with devastating consequence. He appears to be a victim in a completely different tragedy - connected only by Liz. I hear he is an intelligent and sensitive young man with a promising future.

He has made all the right moves to date in pleading guilty, appearing remorseful, asking to contact us and finally confronting us at the restorative justice meeting in Cambridge.

... why should someone in this situation walk free with no more than a "bad luck young man - hope you learned something by all this?" What sort of message would that send to our driving public? Just how expensive do the lessons we give have to be?

I would not like to see James Berry sent to jail, or saddled with some enormous debt for the rest of his working life. No amount of money coming from him would be acceptable to us. - An extract from a letter by Michael Neels on the eve of James Berry's sentencing.