A Southland man who killed his friend in a drunken crash made a video before the fatal journey telling police they could “get f…..”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aaron Templeton, 20, appeared before the High Court at Invercargill\u00a0this morning\u00a0where he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 20-year-old Jack Stephens and drink-driving causing injury to a\u00a019-year-old man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The facts of the case were revealed for the\u00a0first time today and showed\u00a0the\u00a0string of poor decisions which led to the tragedy on February 15 last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton and the two victims had spent the day crutching lambs (the process of removing wool from around a\u00a0sheep’s\u00a0tail and hind legs to\u00a0maintain\u00a0hygiene) at his Quarry Hills home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After completing the job at 3.20pm, the defendant celebrated with a couple of\u00a0stubbies\u00a0of beer and the trio planned a trip to the\u00a0nearby\u00a0Tokanui\u00a0Tavern.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton\u00a0sent what was\u00a0the first of several incriminating videos that day, telling an associate he was\u00a0off to the pub and might be intoxicated later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once the group arrived, the defendant began drinking crate bottles of beer, while his friends started on rum RTDs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About four hours after arriving, Templeton spoke to his mother, told her he was at the bar and would be home later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She offered to pick the men up if they had been drinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton said he would let her know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minutes later,\u00a0the local police officer entered the tavern to speak to staff and patrons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The duty manager noticed the\u00a0behaviour\u00a0of the group of young men change and quizzed them about\u00a0their\u00a0plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton said his mother would pick them up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A courtesy coach was also running throughout the evening, the court heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 8pm, Templeton sent another video to a mate discussing the presence of the constable at the pub and\u00a0saying he was unsure about whether to drive home or wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ten minutes later, though, he had made up his mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton sent a video message in which he showed the police vehicle in the car park then turned the camera on himself to launch into a foul-mouthed rant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“F…\u00a0you, c…. You can\u00a0go get\u00a0f…..,” he said,\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m going to go back\u00a0roads\u00a0and you can get f……”\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Crown summary said Templeton was slurring his\u00a0words\u00a0and CCTV showed him walking with “a staggered gait”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After leaving the bar, the defendant coordinated his friends\u2019 exit and met them in his 1997 Toyota Hilux\u00a0towards the highway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He had consumed\u00a0nearly 15\u00a0standard drinks by this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the journey\u00a0Mr\u00a0Stephens recorded a video, yelling “we\u2019re running from the cops” as Templeton could be seen crossing the\u00a0centre\u00a0line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was no police pursuit\u00a0in progress, the court heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The driver veered into loose gravel on the left of the road prompting\u00a0Mr\u00a0Stephens to joke about wearing seatbelts, but the teen in the back was genuinely concerned and did so.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A couple of\u00a0kilometres\u00a0later, Templeton approached a right-hand bend,\u00a0with a 75kmh speed\u00a0advisory,\u00a0at\u00a0up to 127kmh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He again strayed left,\u00a0overcorrected\u00a0and lost control of the\u00a0ute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It rolled and flipped into an adjacent paddock, coming to a rest on its wheels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton\u00a0was\u00a0ejected and ended up unconscious in a ditch, while\u00a0Mr\u00a0Stephens landed face down in the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The third man remained in the vehicle and later\u00a0extricated himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Members of the public applied first aid until emergency services\u00a0arrived\u00a0but\u00a0Mr\u00a0Stephens died at the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Templeton and the teenager were\u00a0choppered\u00a0to\u00a0hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than six hours later, a blood sample from the defendant showed an alcohol level of 130mg\u00a0but court documents said it would have been about\u00a0189mg\u00a0at the time of the crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The legal limit\u00a0for\u00a0adults is\u00a050mg.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because Templeton was 19 at the time,\u00a0on a restricted\u00a0licence,\u00a0he was prohibited from driving with any alcohol in his system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Justice Cameron Mander allowed the defendant\u00a0bail\u00a0until his sentencing in June but said that was not\u00a0an indication\u00a0of the penalty he may face.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Southland man who killed his friend in a drunken crash made a video before the fatal journey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-298939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298939","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=298939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}