In brief

Body found in lake

The body of Barbara Thomson, 75, was pulled from the waters of Lake Taupo yesterday as members of the community gathered on the shore to pay their respects. Kaumatua gathered in front of divers, who had worked long hours to locate Thomson, and joined each other in prayer. On Tuesday night, a line of sticks were erected to mark where Thomson’s rod was found. Her body was located nearly perfectly in line with the marker. Thomson left her home about 5km away, about 5.30am on Tuesday, to fish her favourite spot at the Waitahanui River mouth.

$20m F1 saga ends

The Australian who crashed his $20 million Mclaren F1 supercar into a Queenstown ditch was made to complete a defensive driving course as a part of his diversion. Businessman Barry Leigh Fitzgerald, 63, was charged with operating a vehicle carelessly on the Glenorchyqueenstown Rd on December 3 last year. He was remanded without plea so diversion could be considered in the Queenstown District Court on December 5. Fitzgerald’s lawyer Nic Soper said police considered Fitzgerald’s crash as ’’low level’’ as it was only a brief moment of inattention.

Teen crash victim named

Friends and family of Kiriana Morrison have described the 17-yearold’s zest and character following her death in a car crash in Auckland. Kiriana, a granddaughter of the late Sir Howard Morrison, was a rear seat passenger in one of two cars that collided about 2.15am on Sunday on the northwestern motorway. No-one else was seriously injured. Morrison will be laid to rest in Rotorua, beside her grandfather, this morning.

Swarm of tremors

A swarm of small earthquakes northwest of Turangi hit between 6pm on February 13 and 9.30am yesterday, with more than 290 events recorded, GNS Science volcano information specialist Brad Scott said. The largest was a 3.8 magnitude quake at 9.35pm on Tuesday. ‘‘It’s pretty much par for the course . . . earthquakes in volcanic zones tend to come in pulses like this.’’ The quakes were likely to be related to the long-term tectonic stretching of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, Scott said.

Sister on murder charge

A woman charged with her sister’s murder has appeared at the High Court at Auckland nearly a decade after the alleged killing. Wide-ranging suppressions cover most details of the case, including the name of the accused and the victim. A murder charge was laid in 2008 following the death of a 24-year-old, whose badly burned body was found in the boot of a car by a relative. Her sister, a teenager at the time, was charged with her murder. Suppression orders prevent detailing why the case had taken so long to get to court. The trial will start on September 4.