Woman ‘accepted’ fatal crash

jury trial at the Blenheim District Court on Monday.

Holdem denied four charges, including one of endangering human life in the absence of precaution or care, causing death, and an alternative charge of driving recklessly causing death. He also faces two counts of reckless driving causing injury.

‘‘I had already accepted in my mind we might crash,’’ the woman said through tears in the witness box.

She said she and Holdem broke up a few weeks before the crash but were still friends, and Holdem drove her from Blenheim to Nelson to pick up Sutton and his partner that afternoon.

They were drinking bourbon and cola on the way and stopped twice to smoke methamphetamine, the woman told the court. But they argued at Hira and Holdem became ‘‘grumpy’’, she said.

After picking up Sutton and his partner, they stopped at a bottle store in Richmond to buy more bourbon and cola, and on the way back stopped again in Hira to smoke more meth, she said.

‘‘[Holdem] was still in a grumpy mood, so he was driving a bit faster than usual.

‘‘It was scary. I was getting wound up as well, and telling him to slow it down. It was too fast. It was just erratic, and we could feel that he was grumpy. He wasn’t paying enough attention, and he was drinking.’’

As they got closer to Blenheim, it seemed that Holdem was deliberately trying to scare them, the woman said.

‘‘I asked if I could drive, but he told me we’re not together any more, so I can’t tell him what to do. I didn’t have my licence at that stage either.

‘‘He would turn the car steering wheel to scare us, and we were in a 4WD, so we were afraid we would tip over.’’

They stopped in Havelock to use the toilet, and Holdem smoked some cannabis, the woman said.

Holdem’s driving got faster as they crossed the Kaituna River bridge, she said. ‘‘He might have let go of the steering wheel a couple times, he was definitely going over the lines, and he was speeding.’’

She then felt the vehicle slide off the road, threw herself over her friend and they ‘‘all tensed up’’ before the vehicle rolled over a bank and landed in a vineyard, she said.

Holdem’s lawyer Tony Bamford said the woman was ‘‘spinning’’ her story to make Holdem’s driving sound worse than it was.

Bamford also asked why the group did not try to arrange another way home when they stopped in Havelock, if the driving was so scary. ‘‘In hindsight, yeah, we should have done,’’ the woman replied.

The trial is expected to run for two weeks.