Victim ‘lived and loved fiercely’
Carmen Marie Yanko ‘‘lived to be a mother’’, her heartbroken family says.
On Sunday the 53-year-old was killed when a car fleeing police smashed into her vehicle at Hope as she travelled to set up her regular stall at Nelson’s Sunday market.
The car’s two occupants, driver Johnathan Tairakena and passenger Phillip Jamie Stretch, were also killed. The pair had criminal histories and both were disqualified drivers. In 2001, Stretch was the driver of a speeding car that rolled near Motueka, killing a passenger.
On Monday, Yanko’s family released a statement: ‘‘We, as Carmen’s children, are heartbroken and reeling from this senseless tragedy. She lived to be a mother and was there for us always.
‘‘Carmen loved and lived fiercely and will be terribly missed by her family and friends.’’
Lighthouse Spiritual Awareness Centre president, and friend, Dennis Nolan said Yanko had been on the centre’s committee for several years.
He said she was a "caring, vibrant person, a lovely mum, friend and dancer, she loved her dancing".
‘‘She was a family person, she loved her children very much. It’s wasteful, really, that she’s gone.’’
Noland said he didn’t think anyone should be blamed for what happened. ‘‘But if people can actually learn from it that would be great because it happens too often. The effect is has on their families is the one thing I can’t get over.’’
Police were looking for a wanted person when they tried to stop the car driven by Tairakena in Gladstone Rd, Richmond early on Sunday. The car kept going and during the 6km chase overtook a truck before smashing into Yanko’s car on the brow of a dip at the end of a long straight at Hope.
It is understood Stretch, 33, was wanted for dishonesty-related offending, believed to be burglary.
Stretch was sentenced to twoand-a-half years in prison at the age of 17, after killing a passenger in a crash in 2001.
He pleaded guilty to 14 charges. Five charges, including drinkdriving causing death, resulted from the crash that killed Jamie Kelly, 19.
Kelly was one of four passengers in a car being driven by Stretch, who crashed after losing control on a bend at Mariri, near Motueka, on May 31, 2001. The car left the road and rolled twice before landing on its roof in mudflats 80 metres away.
Kelly, a back seat passenger, was thrown from the car and landed in the estuary. She suffered head and chest injuries and died within minutes, but her body was not found until the next day.
Police estimated Stretch was driving between 130kmh and 140kmh. He was drinking bourbon as he drove and had six times the legal limit of alcohol in his system.
Stretch was jailed again in 2003, for eight months, after driving while disqualified, unlawfully taking two motor vehicles and theft while on parole. The court heard Stretch was intoxicated when he stole one of the vehicles in December 2002. Stretch drove off in a truck, but stopped when the engine failed. On Boxing Day 2002, he stole a car from a house in Hill View Rd, Takaka. .
Tairakena was jailed for six months in 2010 for a string of burglary and theft offences. The then 17-year-old admitted two charges of burglary, and charges of theft, wilful damage and theft from a vehicle, including cash from a donation tin at McDonald’s. Editorial: Blame no use in senseless tragedy, pg 8 The loss of three lives in a highspeed chase have underscored an ongoing debate over the necessity of high-speed police pursuits.
The death of an innocent Nelson woman and two others who were fleeing police has given new impetus to the debate over highspeed pursuits.
Police pursuits have increased from fewer than 2500 a year in 2012 to 3797 in 2017, according to a police report. The number of deaths during fleeing driver events increased from two in 2014 to 10 (from nine events) in 2017.
Police assistant commissioner for road policing Sandra Venables said fleeing drivers needed to take more responsibility.
‘‘He or she has to take more responsibility and make better decisions. We would hope people would just realise it’s better to stop and talk to the police officer.
‘‘We [police] have to strike a balance between the responsibility to protect life and the duty to enforce the law, but it’s really up to the driver in these pursuits.’’
Police never took pursuits with fleeing drivers lightly, Venables said.
‘‘It’s one of those quick judgement calls police make every day to keep the public safe and uphold the law.
In 2009, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) recommended that police amend their pursuit policy to provide clearer guidelines around when pursuits should be started. Of the 137 pursuits surveyed by the IPCA, ‘‘most’’ were started over traffic offending, while 31 were started over known or suspected criminal offending.
Authority chair Justice Lowell Goddard said at the time: ‘‘Pursuits can begin over relatively minor offending, or general suspicion, and end in serious injury or death . . . in such cases, the benefits from pursuing and stopping an offender do not appear to have outweighed the risks.
‘‘It is also important to acknowledge that pursuits start when drivers fail to respect the law and stop for police. When pursuits end badly, it is those drivers who must bear the responsibility.’’
Police and the IPCA had been working together since July to review chases, and expected to announce a report in late 2018.
‘‘My sympathies are with all of those affected by this, including the other motorists and members of the public who stopped to help, and the emergency response personnel.’’
Barrister Deborah Manning, who has advised families of people killed in police pursuits, told Radio New Zealand there should be a ban on pursuits, except for serious crimes as was the case in Australian states.
She believed the IPCA and the police were incapable of fixing the problem because of an ‘‘entrenched cultural problem in the police that they want to chase’’, and suggested an independent inquiry should be held under the Inquiries Act.