Driver leaves mate for dead after crash
Within seconds of smashing through a fence, Michael Hoani Wilson Cribb jumped out and ran without a second look at his passenger who’d suffered serious injuries.
He’d been driving a goldcoloured Honda in convoy with two other vehicles in Hamilton, witnesses said, speeding and weaving in and out of traffic as if racing.
Shortly before he lost control on the evening of Saturday, January 2 this year, the 28-yearold had been driving on the median strip of busy Ulster St.
He had also overtaken a rightturning vehicle by swinging out on to the wrong side of the road.
Despite Cribb’s quick exit from the crashed vehicle – said to be to evade police – court documents say officers soon found him jumping the fence of a nearby property.
His actions earned him a charge of driving dangerously causing injury, and failing to stop and ascertain injury after a crash.
He appeared in Hamilton District Court this month for sentencing on those charges – plus four others from an earlier incident where police found 12-gauge shotgun rounds, a hunting knife, and a meth pipe in his car.
Judge Garry Collin sentenced Cribb to a year of intensive supervision, 100 hours of community work, and disqualified him from driving for a year.
He was also ordered to pay
$550 in reparation.
Cribb, who appeared in court through an audiovisual link, read a series of apologies including one to his passenger ‘‘for putting him through this terrible ordeal’’.
He made no attempt to check the front-seat passenger’s injuries before fleeing, court documents say.
The passenger was admitted to Waikato Hospital with serious injuries.
The crash also damaged two fences, a house, and four vehicles, court documents say.
Cribb said he’d learned valuable lessons, and also apologised to those whose homes and property the crash damaged.
His partner was at court for the hearing, and he also had an apology for his family and children.
‘‘They are suffering as well due to my actions,’’ he said. ‘‘My family needs a father.’’
A pre-sentence report for Cribb hadn’t been done, which Judge Collin said was completely unacceptable.
It left the judge unable to consider home detention, but he wanted to carry on with the sentencing as Cribb had already spent about four months in custody.
‘‘Defendants like Mr Cribb, who have been in remand, in custody, for a long period . . . are entitled to have matters dealt with without undue delay,’’ Judge Collin said.
Judge Collin accepted Cribb’s expression of remorse and noted a reasonably significant criminal history.
However, he deserves a chance and needs rehabilitation, the judge said.
The other charges Cribb was sentenced on relate to when he was found unconscious in the driver’s seat of a vehicle on Cambridge Rd, Hamilton, on Tuesday, December 29, 2020.
Ambulance officers called police for help, and officers who woke Cribb up noticed a rifle cartridge on the floor of the driver’s side and a baseball bat under the driver’s seat while speaking to him.
A search of the vehicle and of Cribb uncovered 12-gauge shotgun rounds, a hunting knife, and a meth pipe.