{"id":426500,"date":"2026-05-14T01:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426500\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T01:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:00:08","slug":"rotorua-crash-accused-dante-lamont-judge-pushes-for-earlier-hearing-over-four-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426500\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotorua crash-accused Dante Lamont: Judge pushes for earlier hearing over four deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"

The case was called in the Rotorua District Court on Wednesday before Judge Anna Skellern. A hearing before a judge, called a substantive hearing, was set down for March 1 next year.<\/p>\n

The hearing is needed because Lamont\u2019s defence counsel, Max Simpkins, has previously said in court he intended to call an expert witness to challenge the \u201cauthenticity\u201d of the Crown\u2019s THC evidence, which was the basis of the defence case.<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Kris Bucher raised concerns about the date for the hearing being so far away, and further concerns that the date was only for a reserve hearing – which meant it would only go ahead if another case set to go ahead on that date fell over for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

Bucher said that given this case involved the deaths of four people, it would be preferred if the hearing was sooner, and on a date that was confirmed for this case.<\/p>\n

Bucher noted there had already been unavoidable delays in the case.<\/p>\n

Judge Skellern agreed, saying it wasn\u2019t appropriate for this case to be a reserve hearing next year.<\/p>\n

She asked that it be recalled in June in the hope that another earlier date would become available.<\/p>\n

Lamont, whose appearance was excused in court this week, allegedly had 25 nanograms of THC per millilitre of blood, exceeding the 3-nanogram per millilitre level legally considered high-risk.<\/p>\n

\"RubenRuben James Stockdale-Frost, 19, and Amelia Rose Stockdale-Frost, 26, both of Napier, died after the crash in Rotorua in December last year. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Amelia, 26, and Ruben, 19,<\/a> Stockdale-Frost were siblings from Napier.<\/p>\n

Amelia was married to crash survivor Josiah Lamont with two young daughters, and the family had recently moved to Rotorua.<\/p>\n

Her brother, Ruben, was a musician.<\/p>\n

\"Tray-DeeTray-Dee Wall. Photo \/ David Wall\"Mary-JaneMary-Jane Heke. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

They were killed in the same car as Wall, 20, a keen boxer from Rotorua.<\/p>\n

Heke, a 50-year-old Rotorua grandmother, was travelling in the other vehicle.<\/p>\n

Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The case was called in the Rotorua District Court on Wednesday before Judge Anna Skellern. A hearing before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[218740,42843,15166,3602,2082,3011,35698,3958,57027,111,43,139,69,1523,18661,1327],"class_list":["post-426500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crashaccused","tag-dante","tag-deaths","tag-earlier","tag-for","tag-four","tag-hearing","tag-judge","tag-lamont","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pushes","tag-rotorua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426500","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=426500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}