Skipper guilty on life jacket charge

A Waikato skipper whose boat flipped in rough seas, drowning a 13-year-old boy, has become the first person to be prosecuted for not ensuring a passenger's life jacket was correctly worn.

Otorohanga company director James Gordon Newlands, 47, was yesterday convicted of needlessly endangering his passengers.

The rare charge relates to the capsize of his boat in heavy swells near Te Kaha on the East Cape last year.

Newlands had defended the accusations at the three-day hearing in the Tauranga District Court, saying he had done all he could to ensure the safety of his passengers.

Mt Maunganui boy Steven Robinson, one of three 13-year-old passengers on Newlands' boat Predator, including Newlands' son Hamish, was swept away on January 29 by large breaking waves as the boat flipped at Maraetai Bay.

Newlands was trying to cross a reef to get out to sea for a day's fishing. A boat successfully launched 10 minutes before his attempt, as did the boat immediately following him.

All boat passengers were wearing life jackets, but Steven's had become loose and was pulled from his torso and shoulders in the water.

Judge Christopher Harding described Maraetai, also known as Schoolhouse Bay, as a difficult exit to the open sea and particularly risky in big swells.

There were alternative, more sheltered launching sites within a few minutes' drive that were better protected from running seas.

He found that Newlands failed to ensure that Steven's life jacket was securely fastened before trying to make the crossing. It had been at least 15 minutes since he checked all the boys' jackets were properly zipped and clipped.

As skipper, Newlands had the responsibility to know that the passengers' life jackets were not only being worn, but done up properly. It was wrong to rely on oral assurances that "all was well".

He said Newlands was "in a general sense" a safety-conscious captain - an experienced recreational fisherman and skipper and a regular visitor to the area for almost 40 years, who had made the exit from Maraetai Bay over the rocky reef hundreds of times in a number of different boats.

But Judge Harding said the conditions that afternoon - described by some witnesses as "ferocious, angry" and the worst they had ever seen - were "clearly risky and dangerous", especially with three young people on board.

The defendant's decision not to use a safer alternative launching site exposed him, the three boys and the boat to danger.

"Clearly, in the circumstances, it was an error of judgment."

Newlands' lawyer, Kit Clews, said a witness' video footage showed that Steven's life jacket was zipped and buckled up, but the top buckle had become undone.

He said his client was full of remorse and felt the incident was a tragedy.

"If the end result is better sea safety then all the better. It's such a tragedy and [Newlands] is having difficulty coming to terms with it."

Steven's mother, Kelly Robinson, said yesterday that she was pleased when the judge announced the guilty verdicts.

"It has now answered the question that has been tormenting me for 12 months: Someone is responsible for my son's death," she said.

The single mother's last message to her boy was by text only hours before his death. "Have fun, son. Make sure you put on lots of sunblock. I love you," she wrote.

Steven texted straight back: "I love you heaps, Mum."

That was the Saturday morning of the Auckland Anniversary Weekend holiday last year.

Steven had never been deep-sea fishing before and had been out only once in a launch.

Maritime New Zealand spokesman Lindsay Stuart said the court ruling warned all skippers to check that sea conditions were safe and ensure life jackets were not only worn, but secured properly.

Newlands was remanded until March 3 for sentencing, to enable an emotional harm and reparation report to be prepared.

He faces a penalty of up to 12 months in jail or a $10,000 fine.


The rules

Maritime safety law requires life jackets to be worn in any situation where there is heightened risk, such as poor weather, crossing a river mouth or if the boat is faulty.

The law requires that life jackets fit the people wearing them.

They are not compulsory in calm, no-risk conditions.