{"id":79170,"date":"2025-10-15T03:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/79170\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T03:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T03:38:08","slug":"parole-board-apology-texting-truckie-sarah-schmidt-who-killed-caleb-baker-released-before-eligible-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/79170\/","title":{"rendered":"Parole Board apology: Texting truckie Sarah Schmidt, who killed Caleb Baker, released before eligible date"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schmidt later pleaded guilty to two charges of dangerous driving <\/a>\u2013 one each of causing death and injury.<\/p>\n

She was released on parole on July 15 this year after appearing \u201cvisibly upset\u201d and remorseful before the Parole Board on July 1, her first appearance.<\/p>\n

But the Parole Board<\/a> chairwoman, Justice Jan-Marie Doogue, said today that it had now been identified that Schmidt was not eligible for release on parole until two weeks later \u2013 July 29.<\/p>\n

The board was \u201cin error\u201d in granting her release on July 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Justice Doogue said Schmidt would not be recalled to prison to serve the two weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has not breached her release conditions and is not considered to be an undue risk to the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"CalebCaleb Baker of Napier died in the motor vehicle accident on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway in February 2024.<\/p>\n

Justice Doogue said the board wanted to publicly acknowledge and take accountability for what had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is particularly mindful of the additional distress this news will cause the family of Caleb Baker, and to the other driver injured in the crash, and apologises unreservedly to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll board members have been reminded of the importance of ensuring they are aware of an offender\u2019s parole eligibility date and their decisions are consistent with that date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s uncle, Shane Taurima, said last week that his family were \u201cdevastated\u201d by Schmidt\u2019s release after serving less than one-third of her sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cNine months for taking a life is impossible to comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Taurima said Justice Doogue had contacted Baker\u2019s mother, Janice Stevens, this morning to advise her of the error and offer the apology.<\/p>\n

\u201cJanice was extremely distressed and unable to speak when told this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wh\u0101nau are deeply distraught and upset that such a serious mistake could occur.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the board has acknowledged the error and apologised, this has caused further pain and disbelief for our wh\u0101nau,\u201d Taurima said.<\/p>\n

He said that while family members appreciated the board had taken responsibility, the mistake had \u201cshattered what little trust we had left in the system\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies like ours deserve better \u2013 greater care, respect, and accountability from those making decisions that affect victims so deeply.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus remains on Caleb, honouring his memory and continuing to speak up so that no other wh\u0101nau has to endure this kind of hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

44 minutes on the phone<\/p>\n

Schmidt spent 44 minutes using her phone during a two-hour run between Dannevirke and Napier Port in the early morning of February 9, 2024.<\/p>\n

After starting on her return journey down the Hawke\u2019s Bay Expressway<\/a>, she was still using her phone when she ploughed her 30-tonne Volvo truck into the back of Baker\u2019s Toyota Hilux, which was at the rear of the stationary queue.<\/p>\n

In the 16 seconds before the collision, a dashboard camera captured Schmidt looking at her phone on 10 separate occasions, for between half a second and two seconds at a time.<\/p>\n

She looked down at her phone four times in the final six seconds.<\/p>\n

Schmidt was still using her phone two seconds before the crash, when she was travelling at 86km\/h.<\/p>\n

Although she then applied the brakes, it was too late, and she was moving at 76km\/h when her truck, laden with a shipping container, ran into the back of Baker\u2019s ute.<\/p>\n

\"AA view of the crash scene taken from behind Sarah Schmidt’s truck. Photo \/ Crown Law Office<\/p>\n

Baker, a talented rugby player who worked for Fulton Hogan as a specialist operator, died at the scene from multiple blunt force injuries. He was only 4km from his home.<\/p>\n

His vehicle was shunted into a Holden Captiva, which in turn was pushed forward into the back of a light truck. The Holden driver was injured.<\/p>\n

Schmidt was sentenced in the Napier District Court in October last year to two years and four months in prison and disqualified from driving for three years.<\/p>\n

Her statutory release date was February 16, 2027. She will remain on release conditions until then.<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schmidt later pleaded guilty to two charges of dangerous driving \u2013 one each of causing death and injury.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53633,52056,9218,2372,61290,29804,36355,3375,111,43,139,69,47839,13181,6967,61289,37880,61288,1299],"class_list":["post-79170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-apology","tag-baker","tag-before","tag-board","tag-caleb","tag-date","tag-eligible","tag-killed","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parole","tag-released","tag-sarah","tag-schmidt","tag-texting","tag-truckie","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79170","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=79170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}