Council fined over boy's mower death

Hastings District Council has been fined $29,500 and ordered to pay reparation of $65,000 after a 4-year-old boy was killed in a tractor-mower incident.

Uetaha Dahtanian Ransfield-Wanoa died on October 8, 2013, when he was run over by a council mower at Kirkpatrick Park in Hastings.

The council pleaded guilty in February to breaching the Health and Safety in Employment Act in relation to the incident and was sentenced in Hastings District Court today by Judge Geoffrey Rea.

The council accepted it failed to take all practicable steps to ensure its employee did not harm another person.

Last year Ross David Pollock, the driver of the tractor, pleaded guilty to driving a vehicle dangerously and on July 11 was sentenced to six months' home detention, 100 hours' community work, disqualified from driving for three years and ordered to pay $5000 reparation.

The senior driver, who had been with the council for 13 years, expressed his regret and said he was "full of sadness" during his sentencing, after retiring from council duties a month earlier.

Later, Pollock, who had no previous convictions and a clean driving record, successfully appealed the period of driving disqualification imposed.

The three years' disqualification was quashed and a period of 18 months imposed in lieu.

The council said in February it had reviewed its safe operating procedures for all mowing operators and improved the training and supervision of drivers in the wake of the incident.

- Simon Hendery of Hawke's Bay Today