Police checking sequence in fatality

Coen van Rosmalen. Photo supplied.
Coen van Rosmalen. Photo supplied.
A dutchman hit and killed by a taxi in Wanaka on Sunday was not ''staggering drunk'' and may have been on the road because of a ''prior event'', police say.

A postmortem carried out on Coen van Rosmalen (24) yesterday has validated witness reports he was already lying on Beacon Point Rd - just minutes from his house - when a Toyota taxi hit him about 3.30am.

But the ''big question'' yet to be answered was how he came to be there, Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Blackie said yesterday.

''The postmortem results initially would suggest that it's consistent with him being struck whilst prone on the ground and that's consistent with our preliminary vehicle examination as well'', Det Snr Sgt Blackie said.

Asked if police were considering the possibility Mr van Rosmalen had been hit and injured by another vehicle before the taxi, Det Snr Sgt Blackie said: ''excluding or including the fact there was a prior event'' was the focus of the police investigation.

''The big question in our mind is what happened preceding the crash ... I want to make sure there was no prior event that caused him to be on the road prior to the taxi running him over.''

Police have examined CCTV footage from outside and inside bars along the Wanaka lakefront and the township where Mr van Rosmalen was drinking on Saturday night.

People who were with Mr van Rosmalen that evening have been spoken to by police, including one person who had walked with him part of the way home.

While Mr van Rosmalen was ''obviously intoxicated'', there was ''nothing to suggest that he was staggering drunk or anything like that'', Det Snr Sgt Blackie said.

''There's nothing in the CCTV footage that would suggest that he was - on a scale of one to 10 - up around the eight, nine, 10. He wasn't up at that level.''

Lighting testing and night photography would be carried out at the accident site this week, while the taxi driver involved in the accident would be interviewed today, along with Mr van Rosmalen's friends and flatmates.

Police were still keen to hear from other people who were with Mr van Rosmalen or saw him in the hours before his death.

''We're making good progress ... but there's still gaps that we need to fill.''

Mr van Rosmalen was in New Zealand to go snow-boarding.

He had arrived in the country in June with a friend, also from the Netherlands, and had been living in Wanaka for the past few months.

He was sharing a house less than a kilometre from the accident site with up to seven other flatmates.

Det Snr Sgt Blackie said Mr van Rosmalen's family was considering coming to New Zealand ''at some stage''.

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