KEY POINTS:
The devastated parents of the teenager run down and killed on a Northland beach on New Year's Eve say they will never forgive the young motorcyclist who ploughed into their daughter and her best friend.
Craig Fernandez, who rushed to his daughter Daisy's side after she was struck on Ripiro Beach, revealed yesterday that he had warned police about reckless drivers on the beach just hours before his daughter was hit.
"I was lying on the beach with Daisy and I turned around and saw this cop standing there. I said 'I told you this was going to happen and now look - it's my daughter'. At that stage I didn't know how bad she was. He just looked at me and said 'I'm sorry'."
Daisy and her father were rushed by helicopter to Whangarei Hospital. Daisy was unconscious but was able to squeeze her father's hand as he sang a poem to comfort her.
"It's called the kiwi bird," said Craig.
"The kiwi bird is round and shy
It's got small wings so she can fly
She wakes by night and she sleeps by day
Kiwi... Kiwi is what she'll say"
At their Tauranga home yesterday, and speaking publicly for the first time, Craig and Sandi Fernandez remembered a vibrant, independent and popular young woman, who was buried on Friday - her 14th birthday.
They say they have no wish to meet the boy who killed Daisy, nor are they in a forgiving mood.
"Why weren't the parents out there telling the 15-year-old boy not to be speeding around on his bike with no lights?" asked Sandi.
"No helmet, no lights, no registration," said Craig. "We need to let the courts decide and let the country see it for what it is. If it's just another slap with a wet bus ticket yet again - no, I don't want to go there."
He said residents had called 111 earlier on New Year's Eve, alerting police to speeding hoons. "There's a 30km/h speed limit out in front of the baches. During the day I'd noticed cars doing over 100km/h."
From a friend's house, Craig could hear the motorcycle screaming along the beach about 9.30pm. "Some guy actually tried to pull him off his bike. We could hear him scream around, but you couldn't see him on the beach because it was pitch black... [Later] my sister came in and said there had been an accident. I just ran."
The boy - who has claimed he thought he had hit a log - has been referred to the police Youth Aid section, while Northland council authorities are reviewing whether to crack down on vehicle access to beaches. Auckland councils are doing the same.
Craig Fernandez said something had to be done.
"But how do you police it?" asked Sandi. "I mean, a parent that would let a 15-year-old drive... Everything starts in the home. It's not so much the laws, it's what happens in the family and what happens at home."
Daisy died in hospital at 6.30am on New Year's Day, just three hours after her mother arrived after a frantic dash from Tauranga. "I got there at 3.30am. I was glad she was still there and had waited for me."
Sandi said her heart had been ripped out by Daisy's death.
Craig, who has holidayed in Glink's Gully for 53 years, doesn't know when or if he'll ever return.
"The actual spirit of the place and what it means to us has gone."
