Emotions ran high in an Oamaru courtroom today as a teenage drink-driver responsible for a crash which caused the deaths of her two friends was sentenced to 12 months' home detention.
The deaths of her two friends has “weighed heavily” on the shoulders of Annika Natalie Ludlow (19).
In the Oamaru District Court today, Ludlow, of Palmerston, was sentenced to 12 months home detention on two charges of drink driving causing the death of Hamiora Te Kira (27), known as Tama, and Kararaina Te Rupe (28), at Macraes on August 29 last year.
Ludlow was also disqualified from driving for three years, and ordered to pay $10,000 reparation to the victims’ families.
Te Kira and Te Rupe were a couple and left behind four children, then aged between 3 and 9 years old.
Judge Jim Large said after reading the victim impact statements from whānau of the two deceased he had a knowledge of the “depth of hurt and depth of loss” suffered by them.
Emotions ran high in the courtroom as whānau of the victim, the defendant, as well as the defendant herself were visibly upset.
A statement of facts said Ludlow, who was 18 at the time, had bought a new Honda Civic car that day, and with her partner went to the Palmerston house of a work associate, where she drank an alcoholic drink.
Te Kira and Te Rupe were also at the house and decided to go for a drive with Ludlow and her partner in the new car.
They were not wearing seatbelts.
Just before midnight, as the car was travelling along Macraes Rd towards Palmerston, Ludlow failed to take a bend and hit gravel on the side of the road. She then over-corrected and spun out of control at close to 100kmh. The car went off the road and down a steep bank, rolling end over end. The left rear quarter of the Honda hit rocks on the bank, and the rear end and roof took most of the force of the collision.
The two victims died shortly after impact, from head and neck injuries.
Ludlow and another passenger were taken to Dunedin Hospital, and released the next day.
A blood sample taken at the hospital five hours after the incident returned a reading of 92mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal limit for a driver under 20 is 0mg/100ml, and the legal limit for a driver aged 20 or over is 50mg. The blood specimen also contained THC (the active substance in cannabis).
