A4 NEWS Friday, December 2, 2011
■ HIGH COURT
THE PRESS, Christchurch
■ MARTIAL ARTS
■ MINING SAFETY
Huntly
mine
meeting
called
Man gets four
years jail for
deadly crash
David Clarkson
Timothy George Surynt committed
manslaughter on the day he won
$2000 on the poker machines at a pub
and went drink-driving at high
speed.
The 19-year-old woman passenger
he killed when his car crashed into a
parked car on Wairakei Rd had told
him to ‘‘cut it out’’ when his highspeed driving frightened her.
The 21-year-old was sentenced to
four years’ jail by Justice Fogarty in
a High Court sitting in the
Ashburton courthouse yesterday.
Justice Fogarty said Surynt
crashed late at night after beginning
drinking after work at 3.30pm on
April 15, when he won $2000 on the
poker machines at the Bush Bar. He
then went to another bar.
Surynt had pleaded guilty to
manslaughter, reckless driving causing injury to a friend, whose ankle,
ribs and shoulder blade were broken
in the crash, and drink-driving.
Justice Fogarty said Surynt had
tried to dial 111 after the crash, but
was plainly in shock and had not
appreciated how badly his passenger
was injured.
Aimee Ford, 17, the younger
sister of the victim, Emma Jayne
Ford, said Emma had been her best
friend since their mother’s death
when Aimee was six.
She could not understand why
Surynt did not go to her sister’s aid
in the crashed car.
Emma’s father, Alistair Ford, told
the court: ‘‘I would have thought that
Tim owed Emma the decency of
apologising to us.’’
He saw Surynt as non-caring and
heartless.
‘‘Emma made people shine with
her personality,’’ Ford said.
‘‘She was gifted beyond her years.
We lost the heart of our family.
Emma was our best friend, daughter,
and mum to us all.’’
Crown prosecutor Tim Mackenzie said experts assessed the
speed at between 80kmh and 98kmh
at the time of the crash. It involved
excessive speed in a dense urban
area and disregarded warnings from
a passenger.
Surynt had breached his restricted licence by carrying passengers,
driving after 10pm, and driving a
‘
We lost the heart of our
family. Emma was our
best friend, daughter,
and mum to us all.
Alistair Ford
victim’s father
Spirit moves: Hiriwa ‘‘T-Man’’ Te Rangi says he is prepared for ‘‘whatever the man upstairs has ready for me’’.
Timothy George Surynt
manual vehicle when he was
licensed for automatics only.
His breath alcohol level was
599mcg.
Mackenzie asked the judge to
impose a minimum non-parole term
to increase the deterrent element of
the sentence.
‘‘The Crown says there is a
prevalence of young men, intoxicated, killing people in cars.’’
However, Justice Fogarty ruled
that out, saying there was no
precedent for it in other cases.
Defence lawyer Craig Ruane told
the court that Surynt had been
deeply remorseful, shocked, and
upset by what had happened.
Surynt had written an apology
letter to the family, in his own
words, without prompting, four days
after the crash. Ruane had not
passed on the letter until after the
guilty pleas.
The judge imposed concurrent
sentences of four years’ jail, and
disqualified Surynt from driving for
18 months, and gave him a first
warning under the Government’s
three-strikes legislation, which
imposes heavier penalties on repeat
violent offenders.
Photo: FAIRFAX NZ
From cage fighter to punching preacher
Veteran Invercargill cage fighter
Hiriwa ‘‘T-Man’’ Te Rangi will
transform into the punching
preacher next year when he
moves to Christchurch to study to
become a pastor.
Te Rangi, who has carved out a
colourful mixed martial arts and
kickboxing career during the past
25 years, will fight in his last
Southland bout on December 10.
That Battle of the Gladiators
match will see him defend his
New Zealand heavyweight mixed
martial arts title against
Wellington’s Pete Aberdeen.
Te Rangi has never been short
of a surprise during his fighting
career and admitted his move to
study theology at Christchurch’s
Vision College next year was a
shock even to him.
‘‘If you asked me a year ago,
that I’d be training to become a
pastor, I’d have told them to shove
off,’’ he said.
‘‘Being a pastor is going to be
unreal. I’m prepared for whatever
the man upstairs has ready for
me.’’
Te Rangi was baptised in April
and is a member of the Acts
Churches New Zealand, formerly
the Apostolic Church.
He started tagging along to the
Invercargill Christian Centre
with his fiancee, Tash Tawhara,
and said he realised he wanted to
make a difference through his
faith. Te Rangi grew up as a
member of the Ratana Church
while living in Whanganui, but
said he lost interest in religion as
he became older. ‘‘In 1988, I moved
away – the whole thing wasn’t for
me – and I started fighting.’’
Combat sport served as an
outlet for him to deal with his
problems and anger as a young
man. He said he could easily have
taken the wrong path in life.
Fairfax NZ
■ CANTERBURY DISTRICT HEALTH BOARD
Plan in place to destroy old patient records
Jo McKenzie-McLean
[email protected]
Thousands of decades-old patient
records are to be destroyed to free
up space and cut costs.
The
Canterbury
District
Health Board has adopted a
disposal policy for old clinical
records that have been piling up
in secure storage units.
The board’s corporate privacy
officer, Greg Brogden, said its
disposal policy was in line with
other district health boards,
which had been destroying old
records for some time.
The cleanout would be a
‘‘huge’’ task, with records dating
back to the 1960s. They included
6000 crates of radiology film and
106,000 records of deceased people.
Initially, the hospital would
destroy the records of those who
died more than 10 years ago. It
would then destroy records 10
years after the last patient visit,
with some exceptions for
obstetric, paediatric and radiotherapy records, he said.
Previously, the board did not
have a policy and all records were
kept and stored at a secure
facility.
The cost was about $1 million a
year for storage and retrieval of
the records.
‘‘Sometimes records are useful,
but because it costs us to have
records in storage and space is at
a premium, we have to put a
policy in place.’’
The Public Records Act also
required the district health board
to adopt a disposal policy,
Brogden said.
Many of the records being
destroyed were duplicates, with
many now stored electronically.
The disposal will be overseen
by the clinical records manager of
Ashburton Hospital, along with
the corporate legal team and the
chief archivist.
In some cases, records would
be offered to Archives New
Zealand, he said.
Mine owner Solid Energy will
hold a public meeting today as
more Huntly East miners blow the
whistle on unsafe practices.
The company announced the
meeting to discuss the ‘‘safety
regime’’
last
night
amid
accusations workers covered gas
sensors on their cutting equipment in order to meet targets.
Solid Energy chief executive
Don Elder and chief operating
officer Barry Bragg, as well as
local managers, will host the
meeting
for
staff
and
stakeholders. Bragg said he
remained confident the mine was
operating safely and he could not
find any evidence to support the
allegations made to news media.
He said no staff member had
discussed concerns with the
company, union or Labour
Department.
But a miner said shortcuts
were being taken due to the poor
state of the mine’s ventilation
system. He said workers put rags
over the sensors which automatically switched off their equipment
when methane levels reached 1.25
per cent. It was a dangerous
practice given the high concentration of methane – and poor
ventilation – in the section of
mine they were currently working in, he said.
They were warned when they
started on the section in January
that there would be three to four
times the usual level of methane.
The high levels of gas meant
cutting equipment continually
switched off, frustrating some.
‘‘They have to stop what they’re
doing, walk to their station, reset
the equipment, then walk back
and continue what they’re doing.’’
He said breaching the 1.25 per
cent gas level was becoming
increasingly common. Solid
Energy would not be drawn on the
allegation last night, saying the
issues could be raised at today’s
meeting.
Meanwhile, a concerned family
member spoke out about the
coalmine, saying dodgy practices
had been going on since long
before the Pike River disaster.
The woman, who declined to be
named for fear of exposing her
family to persecution, said she
worried about her men in the
mine ‘‘all the time’’. ‘‘After Pike it
was a relief that the safety was
going to be looked at. I am really
shocked that is still going on.’’
She said the staff were
motivated by managers who
received a ‘‘personal bonus’’ if
their crew met or exceeded
production targets. ‘‘No production, no bonuses,’’ she said.
Fairfax NZ