Emotional scenes at sentencing for fatal accident that killed Invercargill nurse

“To be brought out of a coma and told that Emma had passed away … it was as if someone had taken my heart and literally broken it.”

Those were the moving words of the husband of Invercargill nurse Emma Bagley, 37, who died in December 2018 after an accident.

Leonard Bagley’s victim impact statement was read in Invercargill Superior Court yesterday, during the sentencing of Taine Rupena Tata Bryn Edwards.

Edwards was convicted in September of being a party to a manslaughter by inciting and encouraging a driver to recklessly operate a vehicle.

Edwards was the passenger in Deejay Kane’s car when he wrecked the Bagley’s vehicle that she was in with her husband and two children, ages 7 and 5, on December 7, 2018.

Judge Cameron Mander sentenced Edwards to two years and six months in jail and ordered him to pay $ 12,000 in reparations for emotional damage.

Edwards was also disqualified from driving for three years.

Leonard Bagley wrote in a statement, read out by Crown Prosecutor Mary-Jane Thomas, that she constantly thinks about how things could be different if they left home earlier or later that night.

“I have lost the love of my life and my children their mother due to someone else’s selfish actions.

“Not being able to tell you I love you, saying goodbye or attending his goodbye has been incredibly painful for me.”

Emma’s father, Bruce Duncan, was moved to read her statement in court; He said that since the accident, he and his wife had to endure a situation that “no parent or grandparent should have to endure.”

One day after the accident, he had to sit down and explain the situation to the two children.

Telling them that their mother had died and that their father was in serious condition at the hospital was “without a doubt the most challenging thing” he had to do, he said.

“Since they had never experienced the death of anyone in their youth, the children had great difficulty coping with and understanding the reality of what we were telling them.

“We will hear the guttural screams of those two precious children until the day we die.”

Defense attorney Fiona Guy Kidd, QC, also read a letter written by Edwards to the court.

In it, he said that he was deeply sorry for his actions.

“I can’t say that I felt the anguish of losing my soulmate, my son’s mother or my best friend, but I often think, I imagine that if I lose my partner … and someone hurts my whānau, how would I feel angry shattered and lost. “

He said he had nightmares about the accident and “not a day goes by” that he does not think about the effects of the accident on the Bagley family.

“I think it’s something I’ll live with for the rest of my life.”

Kane previously pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter and four counts of reckless driving resulting in injury and received a sentence of four years and eight months in prison.