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Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Editorial: Car crash sees two lives lost

Rotorua Daily Post
5 Mar, 2013 09:33 PM3 mins to read

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On yesterday's front page we reported on the tragic loss of two young people.

The first - Annalese Bacon, a 17-year-old from Taupo - is dead after being flung from a speeding car driven by a stoned and drunk driver

The second - Trent Robertson, a 22-year-old from Rotorua - has just begun three years behind bars after admitting dangerous driving causing her death. While he is still alive, I describe his life as lost because he is now in jail, left for the rest of his life in the knowledge that he caused her death.

Not only was he speeding, drunk and had been smoking cannabis, but he was a suspended driver whose vehicle's suspension was being held together with plastic cable ties.

Annalese wasn't blameless in her death. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt so it won't ever be known if she would have lived.

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Robertson had been travelling at speeds of up to 130km/h when he lost control, crashed into a fence post and flipped the car on its roof.

The crash happened in October last year on Plateau Rd in Reporoa.

Annalese's mother, Darlene Fiveash, read her heart-wrenching victim impact statement in court on Monday.

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"When I went to the funeral home to see if it was true, I lost my legs and was in total disbelief that there was my little girl lying on the table, still and cold," she told the court. "No chattering, not smiling and no laughing. Her injuries were that bad that I couldn't even lift her head just to hold her one more time."

Annalese's brother, Henry, who was very close to his sister, had been hospitalised with broken heart syndrome, which presents itself like a heart attack.

This is not the first family to grieve after such a senseless death and sadly they won't be the last.

When will young people learn they are not bulletproof? Just last month, our reporter and photographer stood on the side of Main St in Edgecumbe at midnight watching the horror unfold as emergency services freed the dead bodies of Kane Jamie Te Riini, 19, and Aidan Brady, 25. The youngsters died when the car they were in lost control and crashed into a tree.

Darlene Fiveash said this week she was disappointed with the three years' jail term. She had hoped for five years. For the loss of a life under such horror circumstances, it seems a little on the light side, in my view.

Robertson was careless in the extreme and time will tell if his jail sentence will do enough to not only change his attitude but also those of other young people behind the wheel.

What do you think?


Email editor@dailypost.co.nz, text DP then your message to 021 241 4568, or write to editor, PO Box 1442, Rotorua.

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