Teen driver jailed over deaths

File photo / NZ Herald

A teenager who crashed his overloaded car killing two friends has been jailed for four years and nine months.

William Nicholson-Kuiti, 19, was sentenced in the High Court at Palmerston North today on two charges of manslaughter and four charges of dangerous driving causing injury, the Dominion Post reported.

He was carrying seven people in his five-seater Ford Telstar when he crashed at Foxton Beach on February 20.

Louise Reichenbach, 20, of Foxton Beach, and Bailey Kinita, 14, of Shannon, neither of whom was wearing a seatbelt, died.

Nicholson-Kuiti had been seen racing another car during the night.

Nicholson-Kuiti had probably been punished enough but a deterrent sentence was needed, Justice Warwick Gendall said.

"The time is coming when stern deterrent sentences may be needed to bring home to youth that this is... culpable homicide," he said.

- NZPA