Early childhood teacher Raynor Cribb was killed in February 2022 after being dragged to his death underneath a car following a high-speed chase. That car was driven by Adam Henare who was today sentenced to three years and five months in prison after a jury found he knew the other man was under the car and chose to drive off anyway. Jeremy Wilkinson reports.

There are hundreds of memorial crosses scattered across roadsides, beside motorways, against power poles and in ditches across New Zealand.

They are small reminders of the tragedies that happened there and in some cases they serve as a grim warning to other motorists.

There is no such memorial for Raynor Waikura Lee Cribb on a somewhat empty road beside a set of train tracks to mark the spot where he was dragged to his death.

He suffered severe abrasions to skin, rib fractures, bones broken or dislocated - and he had a brain bleed and multiple internal injuries.

Cribb had been left to die in a gutter by a man on the run from police, who weighed the risk of being caught following a high-speed car chase against the safety and life of the 25-year-old who’d found himself stuck underneath his Subaru.

Adam Kapo Henare, 42 at the time, knew Cribb was underneath his car, a jury concluded in October last year, and he chose to drive away from the scene of the crash anyway, dislodging the trapped early childhood teacher in the process.

“What I really want to know is why did you leave him? Why didn’t you stay? You left him to die on the side of the road like a f**king animal, with no remorse whatsoever,” Sommer Rauhihi-O’Brien, the woman who raised Cribb, told a courtroom this morning.

“Remember my boy’s face... I want it to be the first and last thing you see every time you close your eyes. You coward.”

Raynor Cribb was an early childhood teacher at a local marae.

Today, in the High Court at Palmerston North, Henare was sentenced to three years and five months’ jail on a charge of reckless driving causing death.

Justice Paul Radich said evidence from the trial made it clear that Henare knew Cribb was alive when he initially became stuck under his car.

Radich said Henare then drove further down the road, swerving from side to side in attempt to dislodge Cribb before stopping some 80 metres away and, with the help of his passenger, manoeuvred his car off the other man before leaving the scene.

“You made no attempt to call an ambulance or provide medical assistance,” Justice Radich said.

“You left him dying on the side of the road.”

Justice Radich noted that Henare said he didn’t deny the charge but proceeded to trial so that everyone involved could understand the surrounding events and context of the night Cribb died.

Crown prosecutor Guy Carter said that while Henare has admitted that he shouldn’t have driven off, he’d refused to acknowledge he knew Cribb was under his car before he dragged him some 80 metres down the road.

“This was deliberately reckless driving. He dragged Mr Cribb for a prolonged period of time under his vehicle,” Carter said.

“He wanted to run, he wanted to escape the police.”

Henare’s lawyer Phil Mitchell disagreed and said that his client was genuinely remorseful for his actions and read a letter he’d penned to the family in open court.

“If there was anything I could do to change the event I would, but I had my chance and made the wrong choice,” he said in the letter.

“I never thought I’d take responsibility for taking the life of another person.

“I could sit here all day and make excuses... but the realty is I am selfish, stupid and I am a coward.”

Left for Dead

Cribb’s partner Chante Clark wept as she described about how her daughter had taken his death the hardest.

“Imagine trying to explain to a 6-year-old that dad isn’t coming back anymore,” she told the court this morning. “I don’t think you can understand the pain I feel as a mother to see my own child grieve every day for her dad.

“I don’t hate you for what you have caused towards me, but I do hate you for what you have caused for Manaia and for that I hope this haunts you for the rest of your life.”

Clark said she hoped Henare felt at least some remorse for what he’d done.

“But you probably won’t, because you drove off and left a man to lay there and die.”

Raynor Cribb died roughly 80m from where the cars narrowly avoided colliding. This is what's being referred to in the trial as "Stop Two". Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson

A rough indication of stop's one and two where the cars have come to a stop. Stop two is where Raynor Cribb was dragged to. Photo / Google Earth

Stops One and Two

How Cribb came to be stuck under Henare’s car was never in contention during the week-long trial. It followed an altercation between Cribb, his two friends and Henare and his friend Alicia Ralston, as the two groups were drinking at a quiet reserve on the outskirts of Levin.

Cribb was in the passenger seat of Daeus Taueki’s Honda with their friend Angus Nuku-Rauhihi riding in the back seat. Henare and Ralston were in his blue Subaru when the three men said they’d seen Henare rummage through their car and decided to give chase.

The vehicles reached speeds of 160km/h on back roads before coming to an abrupt stop when they both attempted to take a sharp right-hand bend onto Cambridge St, just outside Levin.

The Honda swerved to avoid the quick-braking Subaru and, at some point during the manoeuvre, Cribb took off his seatbelt, opened his door and fell out of the car and was run over by the other vehicle.

It’s at this point that the Crown’s case and Henare’s version of events differ.

Henare claimed during the trial that the drivers of the other car left the scene telling him they were going to “f**king get him” before attempting to drive off but stopped further down the road after hearing a “doof doof doof” noise coming from his car and thinking he had damaged his wheel in the crash.

It was at this point, dubbed “Stop Two” by Henare’s lawyer Philip Mitchell, that he first noticed Cribb was stuck under his car, just behind the front passenger wheel.

With the help of his passenger, Alicia Ralston, Henare said he carefully manoeuvred his vehicle off Cribb before leaving the scene.

According to Taueki’s version of events, he and his other passenger got out of their car immediately following the crash to find their friend stuck underneath the other man’s car.

Drunk, panicked by the situation and intimidated by a man twice their size and age, Taueki gave evidence that he left the scene to find a car jack, before turning around, realising they should call emergency services and be with their mate.

Raynor Cribb died after being dragged to his death underneath Adam Henare's car.

Taueki’s harrowing phone call to paramedics was played to a silent courtroom on the first day of the trial in October as he returned to Stop One at the corner to find the other car gone and Cribb along with it.

Eighty metres down the road he found his best friend dying in a gutter.

“Stay awake... please... just breathe, please...”

“He’s having trouble breathing. I can hear it... I don’t want to touch him - he’s bleeding everywhere.”

Cribb died from his injuries just minutes after paramedics arrived.

For Cribb’s family, the trial has meant they were finally able to bury him.

“I just wanted to hear that guilty verdict... I don’t care how long he gets, I just needed to hear that,” Rauhihi-O’Brien told NZME before the sentencing.

She visited the spot where he died during the trial and sat at the spot where her son took his final breaths.

“I just wanted to go there and see and feel and to take it all in,” she said.

There are no flowers beside the road like so many other crash victims because Cribb’s family don’t consider the spot where he died his final resting place.

But Rauhihi-O’Brien will probably never travel that route home again.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.