KEY POINTS:
The parents of a teenager killed by an allegedly drunk driver as she walked along a road with friends, are angry the driver has been granted bail.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Tuesday night's tragedy in Matata, Rita and Adrian Martin told the Herald on Sunday they are still grieving and have had little time to think about the actions of the woman who allegedly drove drunk into their daughter, Stevie-Rae Materi-Marks, 15.
Karma Jasmine McIvor, a 22-year-old former model, has been charged over the incident. She faces one charge of driving with excess breath alcohol causing death and two of the same charge causing injury. She is also alleged to have left the accident scene without ascertaining injury.
Court documents allege that McIvor's alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit. She entered no plea at Whakatane District Court on Wednesday and was granted bail on condition she doesn't consume alcohol.
"If I saw her it would not be a talking moment, it would be a doing thing - if you get what I'm saying," Adrian Martin, Materi-Mark's stepfather said shortly after the girl's funeral on Friday.
The parents are angry that Judge Louis Bidois granted McIvor bail. "The system sucks, that's what we think," Rita Martin said. "If it was one of us we would be locked up right now."
The teenager's mother said she was sipping a tea at 11.30pm on Tuesday when she heard about the accident.
"I got a call from her friend, Josephine, and she was just screaming, just totally a huge noise. I was asking her to calm down and when she caught her breath all she said was 'Stevie-Rae is dead'."
With her husband she ran to the crash scene. "I could see her shadow in the distance but there was no movement - it was her dead body," Adrian Martin said. Prior to the accident the girls had helped at a tangi.
Rita Martin said she couldn't believe what she saw when she arrived at the scene. "I was telling her to wake up, but she wouldn't."
She said despite the sadness of her daughter's tangi, it was a surprise to learn how many friends Stevie-Rae had. "She was just popular.
"I never knew. It's almost as though she was a celebrity. Now we all need to stick together and help each other through this."
Hundreds of Edgecumbe College students travelled to the girl's tangi where they performed songs, the college's official haka and said prayers. Team members from the girls' rugby team sang at her burial site.
McIvor was also a former pupil of Edgecumbe College, who left in 1999 to move to Whakatane College.
"That does produce an extra twist to the whole thing," principal Gavin Greenfield told the Herald on Sunday. He said if McIvor wanted support "the college would provide it".
At Friday's funeral service attended by more than 400, people Materi-Marks was remembered as a "rough diamond" and a "princess" who "loved her rugby".
McIvor will reappear in court on September 12.
