{"id":98007,"date":"2025-10-24T05:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T05:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/98007\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T05:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T05:41:07","slug":"auckland-boy-racer-who-hit-pregnant-teen-causing-babys-death-loses-court-of-appeal-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/98007\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland boy racer who hit pregnant teen, causing baby\u2019s death, loses Court of Appeal fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

At his sentencing in the High Court at Auckland<\/a> in July for manslaughter, the young woman he hit expressed forgiveness through a written victim impact statement read aloud in court. She blamed herself for attending the event as much as she blamed him, she wrote. <\/p>\n

But Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith said deterrence of others was an especially important part of the sentence so that all boys racers will \u201cunderstand the risk they take and the consequences that follow\u201d.<\/p>\n

She ordered him to serve a sentence of two years and four months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

It was also noted the defendant\u2019s unregistered blue Holden Commodore could not have passed a warrant of fitness inspection and he was disqualified from driving due to previous traffic violations when he decided to participate in the illegal gathering in East T\u0101maki on the night of May 19, 2023.<\/p>\n

During a hearing last month before the Court of Appeal, defence lawyers Hannah Croucher and Amy Jordan argued their client should have been given greater discounts for his guilty pleas, youth, background and intellectual deficiencies. <\/p>\n

Justice Wilkinson-Smith had allowed 35% in discounts for those matters, but the defence sought 50-55%. <\/p>\n

The defendant was initially charged with driving dangerously causing injury, but the charge was upgraded three months later to manslaughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was understood to be the first occasion in New Zealand where the Crown had brought a charge of manslaughter for the death of a baby for injuries received in utero,\u201d the Court of Appeal noted in its decision. \u201cThis raised complex legal issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unusual nature of the case, paired with communication issues with the defendant, meant it would have been difficult to enter a guilty plea at any earlier date than he did, the defence argued. <\/p>\n

The appellate panel agreed that the odd circumstances properly explained the delay in pleading guilty to manslaughter. But they noted the defendant took no steps to enter a guilty plea to the more straightforward charges during the three months before the manslaughter charge was added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat charge did not require expert evidence,\u201d the decision noted. <\/p>\n

While some judges might have allowed a 25% discount due to the complex charge and communication issues, the sentencing judge\u2019s 20% discount didn\u2019t result in a manifestly excessive sentence, the panel opined. <\/p>\n

The defence also pointed to a psychological assessment noting the defendant had a low executive functioning score and had the \u201cair of a young man significantly younger than his chronological age\u201d. They also pointed to his ADHD and a background that his former primary school principal described as \u201ctruly dysfunctional\u201d. <\/p>\n

On those points, the appellate panel didn\u2019t entirely disagree, referring to his background factors as \u201cquite weighty\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201c… We would have been inclined to allow a greater discount than the Judge gave for these factors,\u201d the Court of Appeal\u2019s 16-page decision read. <\/p>\n

However, that was balanced by a 10% discount for rehabilitation efforts described by the panel as \u201carguably generous\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, whatever weight is given to one factor over another, a total discount of 45% for all the overlapping personal factors and the guilty plea was about right and certainly within range,\u201d the appellate panel decided. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At his sentencing in the High Court at Auckland in July for manslaughter, the young woman he hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6375,58798,51,72157,15117,72159,11519,1349,15441,634,20556,72158,60049,15124,1668,42,3594,1345,11517,5769,43,1118,13018,2247,8442,20296,72160,28650,5763,3271,5163,40,38,41,39,6123,1299,102],"class_list":["post-98007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-appeal","tag-argued","tag-auckland","tag-babys","tag-boy","tag-burnouts","tag-causing","tag-court","tag-crowd","tag-death","tag-detention","tag-eightmonthspregnant","tag-excessive","tag-fight","tag-front","tag-headlines","tag-hit","tag-home","tag-loses","tag-manifestly","tag-news","tag-of","tag-performing","tag-pregnant","tag-prison","tag-racer","tag-replaced","tag-resulting","tag-sentence","tag-should","tag-teen","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-while","tag-who","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98007","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=98007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}