up the court<\/a> proceedings.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand how a woman who held proceedings up for six months, claiming she didn\u2019t speak a word of English, is allowed to be driving on our roads.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The hearing was held in the Hamilton District Court.<\/p>\n
Gough told Community Magistrate Ngaire Mascelle, through her statement, that Salad did not understand the road rules.<\/p>\n
She claimed Salad had got police to alter the summary to try to take the spotlight off her actions. During his sentencing submissions, defence lawyer Glen Prentice told the court he had sought the addition – not Salad.<\/p>\n
Several of Hailey\u2019s wh\u0101nau read their victim impact statements, detailing how their lives had been upended by his sudden death.<\/p>\n
His mother told Salad that she would never forgive her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I will never forget … I will carry this grief for the rest of my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The fatal collision <\/p>\n
The court heard that on July 9 last year, Salad was travelling east on Mill St in Hamilton at 3.27pm.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Hailey, 18, was travelling east.<\/p>\n
The pair were nearing the light-controlled intersection with Anglesea St.<\/p>\n
Salad was travelling about 20km\/h and about to turn right.<\/p>\n
She had the green light, but was required to give way to oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n
Hailey came through the intersection on his dirt bike while performing a wheelstand, travelling at between 53 and 57km\/h.<\/p>\n
As Salad turned, Hailey crashed into the left rear of her car. He died of his injuries in Waikato Hospital.<\/p>\n
He put himself in a vulnerable position – defence<\/p>\n
Prentice said the crash was a \u201ctragic accident that the defendant did not intend\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe [Salad] is somebody who has lived in New Zealand for 24 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a New Zealand citizen. She is, in all other respects, a law-abiding citizen.<\/p>\n
![\"Ngakau]()
Ngakau Hailey, 18, was killed in the Hamilton crash. Photo \/ NZTR \/ LoveRacing<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I understand the anger and frustration that the family feel … it is important to understand that she is for sentencing on carelessness … and it should never be suggested anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Salad simply misjudged Hailey coming towards her.<\/p>\n
Prentice submitted it was \u201centirely appropriate\u201d for police to amend the summary of facts to acknowledge the wheelstand.<\/p>\n
Prentice said he had pursued the addition, not Salad.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it was entirely appropriate that I did that,\u201d before adding that Salad had pleaded guilty at her first court appearance.<\/p>\n
He said the court knew \u201call too well\u201d there was a problem with people riding dirt bikes around not only Hamilton, but \u201call over the country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe decided to ride through that intersection on one wheel … it is a logical inference to draw, and to invite Your Worship to draw, that if somebody is riding a motorcycle on one wheel and they collide with somebody else, they have put themself in a very vulnerable position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prentice said Salad accepted she failed to give way, and he urged Magistrate Mascelle to also consider Hailey\u2019s driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mean to upset people, the reality is that … had he been riding that motorcycle on two wheels, he may well have been able to avoid this accident,\u201d Prentice submitted, leading to an eruption from the public gallery.<\/p>\n
\u201cOhhh,\u201d one said. While Gough yelled; \u201cHe went 30 feet up in the air, 30 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Amal]()
Amal Salad, 40, admitted that she failed to give way at the intersection. Photo \/ Belinda Feek<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the reality of the situation,\u201d Prentice continued. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, he was in an upright position and was swerving in the lane and was unable to really control the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prentice said but for Hailey\u2019s manner of driving, \u201cthis situation may well have been different\u201d.<\/p>\n
He urged the magistrate to hand down a sentence of community work, together with $4500 emotional harm reparation.<\/p>\n
She should have given way – police<\/p>\n
But police prosecutor Brendan Mills asked the magistrate to exercise a degree of caution when analysing the police serious crash report, which detailed Hailey riding on one wheel through the intersection. <\/p>\n
He told her Salad should have given way before turning. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s clearly incumbent on Ms Salad, as with any driver, to anticipate and take the traffic as they find it in that particular moment in time,\u201d Mills submitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo take the traffic as it comes and drive accordingly. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s failed in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A momentary incident of poor judgment\u2019<\/p>\n
Magistrate Mascelle found that Salad\u2019s driving was in the moderate to serious category.<\/p>\n
That was partly because of her comments in a pre-sentence report, which contradicted earlier statements in which she\u2019d said she hadn\u2019t seen Hailey before the impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t appear to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stated that the traffic light was green, and while acknowledging there was a requirement for her to give way, she said there was a gap in the traffic, and she assumed it was safe to turn.<\/p>\n
Salad also believed Hailey was travelling much faster than what the police had determined.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat comment also supports that you had seen him,\u201d the magistrate said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s important not to lose sight of the causative factor of the accident, which is quite simply, that you failed to give way to Ngakau.\u201d<\/p>\n
The magistrate said a careful and prudent driver would have waited a moment. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a momentary incident of poor judgment with obviously catastrophic consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sentenced Salad to 180 hours of community work and four months of community detention.<\/p>\n
Salad was also disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay $4500 emotional harm reparation and $143 in court costs.<\/p>\n
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The courtroom friction began before the hearing, as Hailey\u2019s family argued with security over the amount of seating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10343,11519,3549,11784,2082,86375,12815,3375,111,43,139,170468,69,15483,32128,5161,1361,4741],"class_list":["post-405940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amal","tag-causing","tag-crash","tag-fatal","tag-for","tag-hailey","tag-jockey","tag-killed","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-ngakau","tag-nz","tag-promising","tag-salad","tag-sentenced","tag-that","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405940","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=405940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}