Sentenced for brother’s death

Asked why he fled from police and killed his brother in a high-speed crash, Dean Crisp said it was because he thought he could get away.

Crisp, now 25, was driving home to Gisborne from Hastings on the evening of Sunday, September 10, 2017, when a constable clocked his Toyota Vellfire at 158kmh. He was on State Highway 2, about 20 kilometres south of Wairoa. Also in the vehicle were his younger brother Ryan, his older brother Nicholas, and cousin Nathan.

The constable turned on his red-and-blue flashing lights and siren, but Crisp didn’t stop.

He accelerated away from the police car and overtook several vehicles at high speeds and on blind corners. His driving was so dangerous that the constable abandoned the pursuit.

Witnesses in some cars Crisp passed told police the vehicle was travelling so fast it was ‘‘leaning’’ around corners so much that they thought it was going to roll over. To avoid Wairoa township Crisp took a back road, Awamate Rd.

He failed to negotiate a lefthand bend where the road crossed a railway line. The vehicle skidded across the centre line onto a grass verge on the opposite side of the road, then skidded back across the road and crashed into a drain, causing it to flip onto its roof before hitting a power pole. Crisp suffered minor injuries. Ryan, 22, who had been sitting in the rear of the vehicle, suffered multiple injuries and died at the scene.

Nicholas, in the passenger’s seat, suffered multiple serious injuries and was flown to Hawke’s Bay Hospital by rescue helicopter. He spent a month in hospital. Nathan, in the right rear seat, suffered minor injuries.

The vehicle was estimated to have been doing 149kmh when it crashed. When spoken to by police at the scene Crisp said he thought he could get away. He declined to make a formal statement.

Crisp, who had never appeared before the courts previously, was charged with dangerous driving causing death, two charges of dangerous driving causing injury and one charge of failing to stop. He pleaded guilty to all charges. In Gisborne District Court yesterday Judge Warren Cathcart sentenced him to nine months of home detention.