Alcohol and speed blamed by Coroner

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 4

Alcohol and speed blamed by Coroner

PA Auckland . Eight road deaths inquired into, by the Auckland Coroner, Mr Allan Copeland, in the last two days were a result of “excess alcohol and speed,” he has said. He expressed his concern while presiding at an inquest into the deaths of four young people who were killed on August 30 when their car crashed into a tree in PonsOnby Road, and disintegrated. The Coroner found that Kiernan Dennis Kenny; aged 20, of Te Atatu, died from multiple injuries suffered when the car he was driving under the influence of

alcohol went out of control and struck a tree at high speed. He found that three of the four passengers died from injuries — Rodney lan Kerr, aged 23, of Ponsonby, of severe brain damage; Diana Elizabeth Huisman, aged 18, of Mount Eden of a broken neck and severance of the spinal cord; and Michelle Courtney, aged 18, of Kingland, of multiple injuries'. A fourth passenger, Burnel Maihi, aged 18, of Whangarei, was seriously injured in the accident, but recovered in hospital. Constable H. A. Kamphuis

told the inquest that all five left in Mr Kenny’s car from 4 a Penrose party. A traffic ; officer told the police he saw < the car travelling about 200 ’• kilometres an hour and it became “airborne” at a < motorway turn-off. An in- 2 spection of the vehicle after ’ the crash was “impossible” s the police had been told. ” The Coroner said that Mr .: Kenny had 169 milligrams of J alcohol to 100 millilitres of blood when the accident hap- *. ’ pened, 69 milligrams over " the legal limit. “It was a pure fluke that no other vehicles were involved,” the Coroner said.