Kind soul’s senseless death
Throughout his life, Matthew Dow had always been concerned about looking out for the little guy.
His mother says he was shy from a young age but was a ‘‘kind and gentle soul’’ who put other people first. Right up to his death on New Year’s Eve 2017, the 23-year-old Christchurch man had been putting that philosophy into action.
While driving near Kaiteriteri the day before, Matthew spied a baby hedgehog on the road, stopping to rescue it before it could be run over.
The next day, he was killed by a driver high on methamphetamine as he was on his way to celebrate New Year with family in Tahunanui.
The crash happened on the Appleby Highway between Richmond and Motueka about 9pm. Takaka woman Alicia FulcherPoole was going the other way, driving a ute with four passengers, including her partner and her two children.
The night before, FulcherPoole and her partner had been high on meth and had stayed up until 3am in Tahunanui. The next day they drank some alcohol, before heading home to Takaka in the evening.
Witnesses on Gladstone Rd, Richmond saw the ute driving erratically and noticed the bikes and bullbars on the deck not tied down properly.
Turning on to the Appleby Highway, Fulcher-Poole began driving aggressively, overtaking vehicles and swerving dangerously. For two minutes, she tailed another vehicle so closely that the driver could not see the ute’s headlights in the rear-vision mirror. When he indicated left and turned, Fulcher-Poole swerved erratically to the right.
The ute slid and rolled directly into the path of Matthew Dow’s Suzuki Swift, where he was likely killed instantly. No-one in the ute was seriously injured.
Emergency services described the crash as a ‘‘horrendous scene’’, with debris strewn over nearly 100 metres. Cans of bourbon, cannabis plants and a bong were found on the road.
It was a moment that changed the tight-knit Dow family forever, one they are still struggling to come to terms with.
Matthew’s mother, Karen Dow, says it is a life sentence the whole family has to endure.
She describes her son as a very shy young man, but meticulous and caring, with a great sense of humour.
‘‘His family meant everything to him, and he had just an enormous love for all creatures.’’ He was a serial rescuer of animals, from birds to butterflies to bumblebees, she recalls.
‘‘He was my designated driver for radiation treatments when I had appointments at the hospital. He’d often be late, but I couldn’t be cross, because he would have got distracted rescuing something and would be telling me all about it and showing the photos when he came to pick me up.’’
Matthew and his mother had shared a very close bond, particularly in the past two years, with Karen going through two mastectomies.
‘‘He wrestled a lot of the time with the unjustness of life. He was incredibly fearful he would lose his mother to cancer.’’
Matthew had struggled with learning difficulties throughout his life, having to cope with dyslexia, dyspraxia and being on the autistic spectrum. But while he lacked self-confidence, he had a great talent for all things mechanical, his mother says.
‘‘Mechanics was his forte. His mind was that way inclined – he was a bit of a John Britten, really.
‘‘He’d fix all his mates’ cars. He had a very skilled mechanical mind. His friends held him in very high esteem – if anyone could figure it out, it would be Matthew.’’
This year was set to be full of promise, with Matthew aiming to study engineering at Ara Polytechnic, along with a trip to the Bathurst 1000 in October. ‘‘Instead, we painted the circuit on his coffin with all 23 corners, one for each year of his life,’’ Karen says.
She says the pain of her son’s loss was made worse by the circumstances in which it happened.
‘‘If he had died of cancer or something, that would have been terrible as well. But at least you could reason that that’s the luck of the draw. But so much of this was totally avoidable.’’
Fulcher-Poole was convicted on charges including driving causing death and injury while under the influence of drugs, and was sentenced on October 17 in the Nelson District Court. She was jailed for three years and six months.
However, the sentence and judicial process have been a source of frustration for the Dow family.
‘‘We feel hugely let down. You have this naive belief that the right thing will be done, justice will be served, but the reality is quite different,’’ Karen says.
‘‘We had hoped with the high incidence of meth- and alcoholrelated road deaths, that this would send a clear message to people that this is basically vehicular homicide. Instead, the reality is she will be out for parole in 14 months, and much of that time will be spent in a mother-baby unit.’’
Fulcher-Poole became pregnant in March. The Dow family suspect it was a calculated move to soften her sentence.
Karen says the family feel the judicial system has been stacked against them the whole way.
‘‘To not even be able to say exactly what you want to say in your victim impact statement was just a mockery.’’
Forgiveness for the woman who killed her son is not something she can contemplate yet.
‘‘She had no concern for her children and for others in her vehicle, and certainly no concern for Matthew. And that says exactly what kind of person she is. She’s not a mother – a mother would not do that.’’
Karen fears that if changes are not made to the judicial system, the same cycle could repeat again.
‘‘If it hadn’t had been Matthew, it could have been someone else, and someone else’s whole family.
‘‘That’s the reality, and it will continue to happen because of the selfishness of these people, who have no conscience at all.’’
‘‘If it hadn’t had been Matthew, it could have been someone else, and someone else’s whole family.’’