Emailing the Otago Daily Times from his home in Qingdao, China, Kurt Joergensen offered his apologies to Patricia Nolan, who suffered broken bones in her feet, broken ribs and other injuries, and whose car was damaged beyond repair in the head-on crash near Makarora on March 18.
''She is the true innocent victim in this accident,'' Mr Joergensen wrote.
''We are so sorry for all the pain and problems we caused to you and no doubt about it was my mistake.''
In the Dunedin District Court, 10 days after the crash, Mr Joergensen was convicted on two charges of careless use of a motor vehicle causing injury to Mrs Nolan and to his wife, Sin Kam Isabella Kong, and ordered to pay Mrs Nolan $7755.93 in reparation.
However, Mr Joergensen failed to turn up at court on April 1 to pay the money and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Mr Joergensen left the country the day before and claimed in his email he could not pay because his wallet containing cash and credit cards was stolen from his crashed car while it was in the possession of the police.
''I was now brought in a fantastic situation: The New Zealand police had stolen my valuables - my cash travel money and my credit cards.''
Mr Joergensen said he also lost a mobile phone, glasses, camera bag and camera battery, watch and other items he valued at $5300.
''Is it normal in New Zealand that values [sic] in the hand of the police are being stolen and no-one cares about it?''
Sent Mr Joergensen's email, Wanaka sub-area commander Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell responded that police had taken a lost property complaint from Mr Joergensen in relation to his outstanding property.
Police accepted the property was ''missing or unrecovered'' from the crash.
''We are investigating his concerns further.
''We can, however, say that we have done our very best to recover Mr and Mrs Joergensen's property from his vehicle, which was severely damaged in a difficult crash scene.
''Mr Joergensen was also advised to view and search his damaged vehicle and the scene to recover any outstanding property, but he declined.''
Mr Joergensen said, without his credit card, it would have taken two weeks or more to arrange for the reparation money to be transferred from overseas.
''Our only option was to leave New Zealand. To flee.''
Mr Joergensen said he was ''not that type of a man who sneak out of a backdoor at night time''.
''But your system did not really give me any choice.''
He said ''the learning'' was that in New Zealand ''the police steal your belongings if they have the opportunity'' and that the legal system did not recognise rental cars carried insurance to cover reparation.
''Thanks god the other car was an old Nissan and not a Rolls Royce or Bentley.
''With the logic the court was using, I would have been convicted to pay $NZ400,000.''
Mrs Nolan told the ODT yesterday she was ''just stoked'' to get some money from Mr Joergensen, though it did not cover the replacement of her car.
Mrs Nolan said her feet were still painful and she was limited in the amount of work she could do around her farm.
Tests had shown probable permanent damage to the hearing in her right ear, caused by the noise of her car's airbags going off.
Mrs Nolan said she was still negotiating with the rental company that owned Mr Joergensen's car over the extent of a payment to cover her replacement car.
