A truck driver who caused a three-car pileup which killed a mother and son near Palmerston North in January has avoided jail time.
Margaret Turnbull, 51, and her 20-year-old son Trent Whitburn were killed when Donald Newman’s truck slammed into the back of their car, sandwiching it between another truck.
Whitburn’s partner, Suede Morresey told One Network News she has struggled “through life” and financially since her partner’s death.
“Trent was everything, my best friend, my lover, my soulmate… I have nightmares where I see Trent and all I see him is in flames”.
Newman was found to be sleep deprived and had traces of cannabis in his system at the time. He pleaded guilty in April to two charges of careless driving causing death reported One Network News.
Palmerston North district court Judge Jennifer Binns says she accepted Newman was remorseful, acknowledged his early guilt plea and restorative justice. He was sentenced to 220 hours community service and disqualified him from driving for 14 months. Binns ordered that he also pay a $4000 emotional payment to Turnball’s family and $2000 to Morresey.
Newman, who has been driving trucks for two decades, says he was “unreservedly sorry” to the victims and their families. His lawyer, Paul Murray, told the court his client’s memory of that day is still blank.
Morresey says however that she has not received an apology, and the restorative justice programme “hasn’t helped at all”.
The couple have a 23-month-old son Hohepa.
“Every morning Hohepa asks for his dad, how do I tell him his father isn’t coming home or his grandmother? Life is a struggle without Trent.”
