Parents of Bay of Plenty crash victim Vaishali McNeill, 15, fight for ‘justice’

• A truck driver with methamphetamine and cannabis in his system caused a crash that killed 15-year-old Vaishali McNeill.
• Donald McGregor was sentenced to 19 months in prison for causing death while driving carelessly.
• Vaishali’s parents are calling for harsher penalties for impaired driving, feeling justice was not served.

May 19, 2023, started like any other Friday for 15-year-old Vaishali Kowhai McNeill.

The bubbly Bay of Plenty teen’s alarm went off at 6.45am and she got ready to go to school.

Her mother, Sarb Mann, remembers being on a work call as her daughter was leaving the house about 7.30am.

“She turned and looked at me, and I said to her, ‘okay then, see you’, and waved to her,” Mann said.

“I feel so bad, as I would normally have told her, ‘I love you darling’ and kissed her.

“But that was the one day I didn’t do it, and that’s the last time I saw her until I got to the crash scene.”

About 5.38pm, a truck drifted to the wrong side of the road on State Highway 2 near Pongakawa and crashed head-on into Vaishali’s car as she drove home.

Her father, David McNeill, was driving behind her and saw the impact send his daughter’s Toyota Altezza rolling in the air, hitting a sign before landing in a roadside ditch.

Both parents were at the scene when a paramedic told them their daughter, still trapped in her car, had died.

They say the crash “destroyed” their lives and their 22-year-old son, Isaiah, also struggles to accept his sister’s death.

They are outraged that, despite the truck driver having methamphetamine and cannabis in his system, he was not charged with manslaughter or reckless driving.

Rotorua man Donald Mitchell McGregor has been convicted of two counts of causing Vaishali’s death while carelessly driving a transport service vehicle with a qualifying drug in his system.

Last Friday in Tauranga, he was sentenced to 19 months in jail.

Sarb Mann and her husband David McNeill, the parents of 15-year-old crash victim Vaishali McNeill, want laws to change to better deter impaired drivers. Photo / Andrew Warner

Mann, 42, and McNeill, 45, were in court for the hearing with 15 of Vaishali’s friends, who wore black memorial T-shirts printed with the words “Forever 15″. They also had brought a cardboard cutout of the teenager but it was not allowed into the courtroom.

Mann said she was glad McGregor went to prison as that’s what they wanted.

“But it feels like there is no justice at all when someone can take drugs and kill our daughter, an innocent person on the road, and he gets a 19-month sentence.”

‘Our daughter was so young’

The family’s home is adorned with photos and mementos of Vaishali.

Each parent carries a reminder of their daughter everywhere they go in the form of tattoos of her image on their forearms.

Some of her ashes were mixed with the ink for tattooed crosses her parents and her brother have.

A memorial site containing Vaishali’s ashes at the family property is regularly visited by friends and whānau, and a memorial at the crash site is surrounded by colourful flowers.

Vaishali McNeill, 15, was killed when her car was hit by a truck on SH2 at Pongakawa on May 19, 2023. Photo / Andrew Warner

McNeill said since his daughter’s death he had questioned their Christian faith.

“I have questioned why God has done this to us, and have asked myself, ‘Did I do something wrong? But I know our daughter has gone to a good place and I have to make sure I get there too to be with her.”

Mann said she was also “holding out for” this.

“I need to see my daughter, and I will see her one day and that is all we both look forward to. I have already told Dave that if I ever have a heart attack don’t save me. I need to go to my daughter, she was my world.

“Our daughter was so young, she had all of her life to live and our family did not deserve this. Our world is never going to be the same.”

Mann said Vaishali was a “really nice, loving and caring young woman” who would never leave anyone behind.

“If a child was sitting alone or a friend home alone, she always ensured she involved them in the things she was doing.”

Sarb Mann and her husband David McNeill, the parents of Vaishali McNeill, 15, who was killed when the car she was driving was hit by a truck on State Highway 2 at Pongakawa near Maniatutu Rd. Photo / Andrew Warner

She was the “glue” of her friend group – a happy and bubbly girl who loved being outdoors, sports, playing piano, swimming, fashion and planning celebrations. Her 16th birthday was two weeks away.

Independent and goal-orientated, she liked design and wanted to be an architect. Mann said her life was “all planned out”.

Vaishali shared her father’s interest in doing up cars, and the Fast & Furious movies were her favourites.

The day she died, she had plans to see the latest instalment of the franchise with friends in Tauranga.

The crash

After school, McNeill met Vaishali at a workshop to fix a light on her car before they began the 15-minute drive home.

“I was driving pretty close behind Vaishali’s car when I suddenly saw a car in front of my daughter swerve out of the way and on to the grass verge to avoid a truck heading towards us clearly on the wrong side of the road.”

The force of the impact sent her car into the air, hitting a roadside sign before landing upright in the ditch near the intersection with Maniatutu Rd.

McNeill and another man rushed to the car and unsuccessfully tried to use a crowbar to wrench the driver’s door open.

The top of her car was crushed in and her foot was trapped under the clutch.

A nurse who had stopped to help checked on Vaishali and told him she could feel a faint pulse.

McNeill called his wife, who was waiting for the pair to come home.

“I think I was in deep shock and struggled to speak or even cry as I waited for my wife and the fire brigade to arrive,” he said.

Mann said she spoke to the nurse on the phone and asked if her daughter was breathing.

“The nurse wouldn’t say anything more, other than telling me I just needed to get there.”

Sarb Mann and husband David McNeil carry a constant reminder of their beloved daughter, Vaishali, on their forearms. Photo / Andrew Warner

They said they later learned the nurse used Vaishali’s mobile phone to call 111.

Ambulance staff were there when Mann arrived, and Vaishali was still inside her car.

“I was able to get to Shali and hold her, and was saying ‘Shali get up, Shali get up’.

“I was told by the emergency staff to back away and let the paramedics do what they were doing. They didn’t know I was her mother.

“Shali was still warm and face down. But there was nothing that I could see that looked wrong, apart from part of her left foot stuck under the pedal.

“Dave and I were standing there, trying to pray. Then the paramedic came over to us, shook his head and told us our daughter was deceased.”

Friends made this image of teenager Vaishali McNeil after she was killed in a crash two weeks before her 16th birthday.

Mann said she ran back to the car and pleaded with the emergency staff to get her daughter out of the car, but they told her they couldn’t.

She said it took three or four hours for firefighters to remove Vaishali.

When she went to move her car, which was parked out of their way near the scene, a firefighter asked her what she was doing “in this crime scene”.

The court case

Police records stated that after the crash, McGregor’s truck rolled on to the driver’s side and slid several metres before stopping on the highway.

The 56-year-old was taken to Tauranga Hospital with serious injuries.

A blood sample taken in hospital showed he had 3 nanograms of THC (cannabis) per millilitre of blood, considered a “high-risk level” and three times the legally tolerated level of 1 nanogram.

He also had 20 nanograms of methamphetamine per millilitre of blood – twice the legally tolerated level but not reaching the level considered high-risk (50 nanograms).

He declined to be interviewed by police about the crash.

McGregor initially denied the charges but after multiple court appearances, pleaded guilty in October. At last Friday’s sentencing hearing, he was supported by his partner and whānau.

Rotorua truck driver Donald Mitchell McGregor was sentenced to 19 months in prison in the Tauranga District Court on January 10. Photo / NZME

McGregor’s lawyer, Xu Wang, said his client was still suffering from his crash injuries, including ongoing short-term memory loss, and back and foot pain that limited his ability to work full time.

He said while the pre-sentence report stated McGregor showed limited remorse, medical documents showed he had “enduring thoughts and memories of the accident”. He frequently thought about the victim, which triggered negative thoughts about himself, sadness and guilt, impacting his mental health, Wang said.

Wang argued for home detention, saying McGregor had pleaded guilty, written an apology letter and been willing to have a restorative justice meeting with the family.

The letter, submitted to the court that day, acknowledged his “poor decision to use drugs and drive” had underpinned what happened, and that he caused Vaishali’s death, which he initially struggled to accept because he could not remember the crash.

Police prosecutor Kerry Sykes argued for a prison sentence given carelessness “at the high end” of the scale, concerns about McGregor’s ability to comply with a community sentence and the “immeasurable” harm caused to Vaishali’s family.

In written submissions, she said he had a history of offending, including two careless driving convictions in the 1990s. His most recent prior conviction, for assault, was in 2015.

Judge Greg Hollister-Jones said it was clear McGregor had been “deeply affected at an emotional level by the crash you caused”.

Vaishali Kowhai McNeill, 15, died on May 19, 2023 after her car was hit head-on by a truck driven by Donald Mitchell McGregor on SH2 at Pongakawa.

“It’s fair to say that your world has come in on itself since this happened.”

He told McGregor the pre-sentence report did not suggest a “deep appreciation of the harm caused by your offending”, but the apology letter was a “helpful step in the right direction”. He recognised this with a discount in the sentence of 3%.

The judge said there were “significant concerns” about McGregor’s ongoing cannabis use.

“I’m not going to sentence you to home detention at an address where cannabis usage on a daily basis has continued. That would be an affront to justice.”

The final sentence was 19 months in prison, with six months of release conditions and a disqualification from driving for two years.

The maximum penalty for each charge was three years in prison.

Fight for ‘justice’

Mann said the jail sentence was little comfort when McGregor had “taken everything from us”.

In her view: “He will only serve half of that before being released. He can then carry on with his life as normal. We can never do that, he’s destroyed our lives.”

Her plea to drivers was not to take drugs or alcohol and drive.

“Think about the consequences, it’s other people’s lives being destroyed on our roads.”

A memorial stands where 15-year-old Vaishali McNeill's car came to rest after it was hit by a truck on State Highway 2 at Pongakawa on May 19, 2023. Photo / Andrew Warner

She wanted laws changed to better deter people from getting behind the wheel impaired.

“There are too many people driving drugged and alcohol-impaired and they are not getting sufficiently punished for it, so they think it’s okay.

“These people need to go to prison, and please stop giving offenders discounts, what is that all about?”

In August, Mann spoke to a parliamentary Justice select committee considering the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill, sharing her call for harsher penalties for the kind of offending that cost her daughter’s life.

The couple still question the charges laid and parts of the police investigation, including why it took several hours to obtain a blood sample rather than taking one at the crash scene – something Mann believed should be standard practice.

“We believe the level of drugs in his system would have been much higher if [the sample had been taken earlier].”

She claimed police did not view some CCTV footage the couple believed showed McGregor’s “poor driving before the crash”.

Mann said she filed a complaint with the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) in October.

The IPCA wrote back last month saying it was satisfied police laid the correct charges and there was no evidence of misconduct or failure in their duty in investigating the crash. Mann said she had appealed the decision.

Senior Sergeant Wayne Hunter, Western Bay of Plenty road policing manager, declined to comment as the case was still before the IPCA.

Remembering Vaishali

Friends Nikaia Coles and her partner Judah Wihapi (Vaishali’s cousin) said losing her was the “greatest loss” they and their friends had ever experienced.

Coles said they had been “best mates” since intermediate school and Vaishali was “like a younger sister”.

“Losing her was like losing the other half of me.”

Nikaia Coles, 18, (third from the right) and 14 friends of teenager Vaishali McNeil attended Donald McGregor's sentencing hearing. Photo / NZME

They described her as trustworthy, genuine, honest and always there for anyone who needed help.

“She was always full of love.

“Not a day goes by without a memory of her going through our minds, and her death has not only changed our lives drastically forever but the lives of every single friend and family member she loved and who loved her.”

On the first anniversary of Vaishali’s death, a memorial event was held at Te Puke High School.

A plaque was unveiled and a special bench seat in Vaishali’s honour was placed near the school’s wharenui.

A plaque installed in memory of Vaishali McNeill. Photo / Andrew Warner

Mann said the next day, an outdoor cinema screen was set up at home and about 150 family and friends watched the Fast & Furious movie Vaishali never got to see.

They shared food, celebrated her life, lit lanterns and released them in the air near one of Vaishali’s favourite spots, overlooking the ocean.

“We plan on doing this every anniversary in honour of our daughter with friends and family.”

Sandra Conchie is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 24 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional/community reporter of the year.