{"id":12128,"date":"2025-09-09T17:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/12128\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:16:14","slug":"wiremu-prime-jailed-for-causing-crash-that-killed-raymond-spooner-in-ngahinapouri-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/12128\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiremu Prime jailed for causing crash that killed Raymond Spooner in Ng\u0101hinap\u014duri"},"content":{"rendered":"

All but four seats in the public gallery<\/a> were filled by Spooner\u2019s family and friends, who clapped as Judge Kim Saunders announced a sentence of three years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould have been you in the ground, boy,\u201d one supporter said to Prime as he sat in the dock.<\/p>\n

But when one of Prime\u2019s supporters muttered; \u201cYou\u2019ll be happy with that\u201d, it sparked a heated response from several grieving supporters, with the judge having to interrupt and ask people to continue to honour Spooner\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n

\u2018He lived big and loved hard\u2019<\/p>\n

Five of Spooner\u2019s wh\u0101nau read victim impact statements to the court, including his grieving widow Sharon, and his parents Vicki and Gavin.<\/p>\n

Sharon explained she and her husband had been happily married for 10 years and had three children together.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a true passion for life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had the biggest heart of anyone I\u2019ve ever known, and he loved nothing more than being surrounded by his family, or the friends we call family.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the kind of person who made the world feel safer, warmer, better.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me … Ray leaves behind a legacy of love, laughter, and a little craziness.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lived big and he loved hard and his absence has left an immeasurable void in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WaikatoWaikato man Wiremu Prime, pictured, has been sent to prison after the road death of Raymond Spooner. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

After discovering her husband, she then had to make the dreaded phone call to his mother, Vicki, who also raced to the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I encountered there is something no mother should ever go through,\u201d Vicki told the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shock and disbelief were immense. The horror of not being able to hold or comfort my son for the last time while he takes his last breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a wound that will never heal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201812 beers, cannabis, and racing\u2019<\/p>\n

On the night of the crash, Prime borrowed his brother-in-law\u2019s Harley Davidson and drove to Ng\u0101ruaw\u0101hia.<\/p>\n

At the time, Prime had an expired learner\u2019s driver\u2019s licence and was subject to 90 demerit points. He\u2019s never held any form of motorbike licence.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t know Spooner, who happened to have a day off work.<\/p>\n

The pair met while Spooner was filling up his motorbike at the service station in Whatawhata, and Prime acknowledged him.<\/p>\n

The pair then rode out to Raglan together.<\/p>\n

Police estimated that the pair drove at about 20km faster than the recommended speed limit.<\/p>\n

They then stopped at a hotel in Raglan, where they each had two bottles of beer over about an hour.<\/p>\n

Before leaving town, Prime brought a 10-pack of RTD cans, and the pair rode to Old Mountain Rd to visit a friend of Spooner\u2019s.<\/p>\n

There, they had more alcohol, and Prime also smoked cannabis.<\/p>\n

Shortly after 5pm, they left Spooner\u2019s friend\u2019s and rode back to Whatawhata.<\/p>\n

Police inquiries found that Prime nearly crashed at one point while trying to overtake Spooner on a corner.<\/p>\n

Near Whatawhata village, the pair overtook a car at speed while riding along the median strip.<\/p>\n

They then stopped at the pub and drank more alcohol between 6pm and 7pm.<\/p>\n

The pair left, heading along State Highway 39, toward Ng\u0101hinap\u014duri, again overtaking \u201cmultiple cars and each other at speed\u201d.<\/p>\n

As they approached the 70kmh zone of Ng\u0101ruaw\u0101hia, Spooner slowed down, but Prime didn\u2019t, and crashed into the back of Spooner\u2019s motorbike, catapulting him off.<\/p>\n

Spooner died at the scene.<\/p>\n

Prime returned a blood alcohol level of 155mg. The legal limit is 50mg.<\/p>\n

He also returned a THC level of .25 nanograms.<\/p>\n

Before falling asleep while being interviewed by police at Waikato Hospital, he told officers that he and Spooner had been racing and \u201cbeing silly on the road before the crash\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also admitted to having 12 alcoholic drinks that day and being tired after a long day riding.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s the worst-case scenario\u2019<\/p>\n

Prime had initially denied racing, but through his counsel Grace Aislabie, and after discussions with the judge, Aislabie conceded there had been racing that day.<\/p>\n

However, she suggested there could be other reasons, other than cannabis, that would have caused him to fall asleep at the hospital.<\/p>\n

She said her client also wished to make emotional harm payments. <\/p>\n

However, as he was now on a benefit after losing his job after the crash, they would have to be in instalments. <\/p>\n

\u201cMr Prime fully accepts that it\u2019s his actions that have caused the loss of a life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the worst-case scenario, and he is here to be held accountable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He had also started an alcohol and drug treatment programme and been doing community hours at his marae.<\/p>\n

She also pushed for a discount for the harm caused to his teenage daughter if he was sent to prison.<\/p>\n

\u2018You should never have been riding that day\u2019<\/p>\n

Judge Saunders told Prime, a father of four, he should never have been riding that motorcycle that day, given he was unlicensed. <\/p>\n

She also acknowledged his remorse but noted his comments in a pre-sentence report in which he stated that he blacked out, woke up in the hospital, and didn\u2019t remember anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am satisfied that this was a prolonged and persistent course of bad driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis avoidable death, you should never have been riding in the first place, and the impact on the victims is high.\u201d<\/p>\n

She took a starting point of six years before acknowledging his early guilty plea with a 25% discount, along with discounts for remorse, rehabilitation, and the impact jail would have on his daughter.<\/p>\n

Judge Saunders disqualified Prime from driving for five years, effective once he is released from prison, and ordered him to pay medical and drug testing costs of $1900.11.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All but four seats in the public gallery were filled by Spooner\u2019s family and friends, who clapped as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14644,9869,1558,14645,11519,14646,3549,14647,2082,14093,14648,1345,10109,78,14641,3375,2686,111,43,139,14643,69,415,1330,1440,14642,14649,1361,1316,14640],"class_list":["post-12128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-anticipating","tag-arrival","tag-been","tag-beloved","tag-causing","tag-checking","tag-crash","tag-discovered","tag-for","tag-gps","tag-hed","tag-home","tag-husband","tag-in","tag-jailed","tag-killed","tag-moving","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nghinapuri","tag-nz","tag-prime","tag-raymond","tag-sharon","tag-spooner","tag-stopped","tag-that","tag-when","tag-wiremu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}