Crash driver asleep at wheel, police tell court

A horrific crash in which a van carrying seven passengers flew off a 10-metre cliff was caused by the driver falling asleep, a court has heard.

Sandeep Kumar, 34, appeared in the Napier District Court yesterday to defend seven charges of careless driving causing injury in relation to a crash on the NapierTaupo Road early last year.

Kumar was driving the people-mover back from Auckland and was not far from Te Haroto about 6.45am on January 2 when it veered left on to a grass verge, back across the road, where it rolled, then went over the cliff. It hit foliage before crashing into a ravine, where it landed on its wheels in a stream.

Kumar and two friends had left Havelock North in the van at 2pm on New Year’s Day to collect his Melbourne-based brother, his wife and three children from the airport about 2am on the day of the crash. He then headed straight back to Hawke’s Bay.

His brother was critically injured. His wife, their daughters, aged 8 and 9, and Sandeep’s two friends were also hurt.

In yesterday’s judge-alone trial, before Judge Geoff Rea, four police officers gave evidence that the vehicle had nudged a sloped concrete kerb seven times over about 50 metres, before it mounted the kerb and continued for a further 50m along a grass verge.

They said tyre marks left in the grass showed that it was only after smashing into a road sign that Kumar applied his brakes and attempted to steer back on to the road.

When police spoke to Kumar 10 days after the crash, he said he had been awake , had not been tired, and denied any fault.

The trial was adjourned until later this month, when the defence will put its case.