{"id":427255,"date":"2026-05-14T12:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/427255\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:25:12","slug":"lyn-fleming-murder-accused-it-should-have-been-me-that-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/427255\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyn Fleming murder accused: ‘It should have been me that died’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It should have been me that died, it’s what I wanted.” <\/p>\n

Those were the words from alleged cop killer Hayden Tasker, less than 12 hours after he fatally struck Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming with his car. <\/p>\n

By Mason Herbert and Laura James<\/p>\n

The incident unfolded in Nelson\u2019s Buxton Square in the early hours of New Year\u2019s morning 2025. <\/p>\n

The 33-year-old is on trial at the High Court in Christchurch, charged with murdering Fleming and intentionally causing grievous body harm to another officer \u2013 Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay. <\/p>\n

The two officers were on foot patrol at the time, monitoring the busy CBD as revellers celebrated the start of the New Year. <\/p>\n

Man charged with murdering Lyn Fleming says \u201cit should\u2019ve been me who died\u201d. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

The accused\u2019s formal police interview was played for the jury today. <\/p>\n

In it, Tasker was informed by Detective Nathan Madden of the charges he would face \u2013 including one of murder. <\/p>\n

When accused hears that, he asked: \u201cDid they die?\u201d <\/p>\n

Shortly after, he was seen and heard crying, asking to call his family. <\/p>\n

The video shows him with his head in his hands looking down at the floor, multiple times. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a lot for me to take in,\u201d he relayed, emotively, to the detective. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t realise one of your officers died… it really has affected me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAll I can say is that I’m sorry to the family.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said no one should ever have to be killed on the job, admitting he had \u201cpunished\u201d a family \u201cin the worst possible way\u201d. <\/p>\n

‘One bad day changes my whole life forever’<\/p>\n

The Crown case was that Tasker was angry with police that night \u2013 something he admitted<\/a> to them \u2013 so he intentionally aimed to hit the officers, knowing they could die. <\/p>\n

Jury shown police interview with Hayden Tasker shortly after he drove at a police patrol, killing one officer and injuring others. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

But the defence case is he was planning on killing himself on New Year\u2019s morning by causing a high-speed police chase and crashing. Tasker said he\u2019d put 40 litres of petrol in his car and would have made it to Christchurch. <\/p>\n

\u201cWas just gonna like ram into some cops and then they would start chasing me but then I would get away kind of like on a movie,\u201d he said in his interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy intention was that they would get away and then they would start chasing me,\u201d he reiterated. <\/p>\n

He referred to his suicide intentions at multiple points in the police video, explaining how he lost his father at the age of 16 and his life hadn\u2019t been the same since. <\/p>\n

He wanted to die and be reunited with him. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy life got torn apart at 16 and I’ve never recovered.”<\/p>\n

Tasker said he\u2019d basically been homeless since that time and had been rejected by his home-town of Motueka. <\/p>\n

He claimed he was living in his car, and couldn\u2019t get a job. <\/p>\n

One officer who avoided being hit by Hayden Tasker later called an ambulance for the murder accused, a court has heard. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

\u201c[My dad\u2019s] probably looking down on me now, like, ‘what have you done, Hayden?’<\/p>\n

“One bad day changes my whole life forever.\u201d <\/p>\n

He suggested he was also triggered by seeing his ex-girlfriend with someone else the day before. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to end it for myself, more than anything, so then I didn’t have to go to the suffering, the pain of just every time I\u2019d see her,\u201d he told the detective. <\/p>\n

Tasker requested a break during questioning, advising the detective he felt ill. Once the officer left the room to retrieve some water, Tasker vomited into a bucket. <\/p>\n

He accepted his mental health and personal circumstances didn\u2019t make what he\u2019d done in Buxton Square right. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just have to take one day at a time the next few days, and just pray that the people that I\u2019ve injured can pull through,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never have thought I\u2019d ever kill someone.\u201d <\/p>\n

He called it a \u201cstupid mistake\u201d and a \u201ccomplete accident\u201d. <\/p>\n

He was three times over the legal alcohol limit<\/a> when he was tested following the incident and claimed he didn\u2019t think his actions through. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe alcohol, it brings the demon out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t really think about the consequences because I was pretty drunk. I knew that they’d be bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wasn’t drinking, I would never have done it,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

But he acknowledged, because of him, \u201cit\u2019s not a happy New Year\u201d.<\/p>\n

Prior assault conviction with a car<\/p>\n

This was not the first time Tasker had been accused of using his car as a weapon.<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber today shared details of the accused’s previous conviction, following an incident in 2020. <\/p>\n

He’d been boarding with a paraplegic man, and the pair had fallen out. <\/p>\n

“The defendant drove towards the victim, hitting him in his wheelchair\u2026 causing the wheelchair to flip over onto its side and the victim to come out of the chair. <\/p>\n

“The victim crawled his way up the curb, over the footpath and behind a concrete fence.<\/p>\n

“The defendant drove at the victim again and struck the fence with his vehicle,” Webber said. <\/p>\n

Second week of the trial for the man accused of murdering Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming on the first day of 2025. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Tasker pleaded guilty and was convicted of assault using a vehicle as a weapon. <\/p>\n

In the Crown’s opening address last week, it addressed the prior offending \u2013 telling the jury: “If you accept that this evidence establishes that propensity, then it is evidence you can take into account in relation to deciding with the defendant intentionally drove his vehicle into the two police officers.<\/p>\n

“The Crown case is that this tendency on the part of Mr Tasker makes it more likely that he deliberately or intentionally drove into the police officers.”<\/p>\n

Justice Mander, presiding over the trial, will direct the jury as to how it might legitimately use that evidence and \u2013 importantly, how it must not use that evidence \u2013 when he sums up next week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“It should have been me that died, it’s what I wanted.” Those were the words from alleged cop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,67,42,91,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-427255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-nelson","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427255","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=427255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}