Teen drunk driver who killed pregnant mum jailed

A Masterton teenage drunk driver who killed a 42-year-old pregnant mother has been jailed.

Isaiah Joel Kokiri, 18, charged with dangerous driving causing death and injury, was this morning sentenced by Judge Gerald Lynch in the Palmerston North District Court for two years and one month and disqualified from driving for five years.

Ann-Maree Hardiman, 42, and her unborn child, died when the car she was driving was struck head-on by Kokiri's vehicle travelling in the opposite direction in Opiki on November 13 last year about midnight.

Mrs Hardiman, who was heading back to her Levin home after a Gin Wigmore concert in Palmerston North, died at the scene.

Her friend, Suzanne Sinclair, also aged 42 and from Horowhenua, was injured in the crash.

Kokiri was almost three times over the legal blood-alcohol limit for a driver under the age of 20 and in breach of his restricted licence at the time of the crash.

Ms Sinclair said she has nightmares every night, and cries every day.

Ms Hardiman's partner Len Blackaby, 44, said the fatal crash was his worst nightmare and has left him a single parent to the couple's two-year-old daughter.

Mr Blackaby told the Herald on Sunday in February he would like to see a law change so drink drivers prosecuted for killing unborn children.

Currently as far as the Crimes Act is concerned, embryos are not recognised as a human being until they were born.

- Newstalk ZB, Herald online