Kaiea Taubakoa arrived in New Zealand last year from the small Pacific nation of Kiribati to tend orchards and vineyards.

It was his second season enduring a cold winter as his family’s sole breadwinner. But he never returned to them.

The shy 37-year-old, who never said much but was always smiling and laughing, was killed in a midwinter road crash on SH1 near Blenheim last year, leaving behind a 9-year-old son.

Truck driver Robert Wayne Clifford was on his phone and travelling at more than 70km/h when he smashed into the rear of the van carrying Taubakoa and other RSE workers.

There was no indication he even braked, the police summary of facts said.

The impact shunted the van about 160m, killing Taubakoa instantly and injuring five others, some badly.

Clifford, 54, already had four infringements for using a cellphone while driving, three while driving a truck.

The scene of the crash on State Highway 1 in Marlborough, where RSE worker Kaiea Taubakoa was killed in June 2024, after a truck ploughed into the back of the van he was in. Photo / William Woodworth

He recently pleaded guilty in the Blenheim District Court to dangerous driving causing death and five charges of dangerous driving causing injury to workers Mafi Kitiona, Tamuera Teawaki, Iotebwa Kautunamakin, Nakaiea Raiwan and Toomi Taniiti.

Clifford’s name suppression has now lapsed.

Mum was devastated by the news

The workers had arrived in the country three months earlier under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme.

The crash on a stretch of SH1 near Grovetown, Blenheim, happened a week after they had moved from the North Island kiwifruit orchards to prune winter grapevines in Marlborough.

Friend and support advocate for the RSE workers, Tokanang Harrison, told NZME Taubakoa’s mother in Kiribati was devastated by the news.

“It’s difficult contacting people back home. They can’t always get to a phone, like, you can’t just ring them.”

The community in Blenheim finally made contact and heard her break down.

“She was talking on the phone, and they put her on the speaker, and she was ... just broken. She wasn’t angry, she was just broken.

“She was just wailing and wailing and we all felt so bad. It’s so hard for families when they send them [workers] away, and then something like this happens.”

Harrison, a cousin of Taubakoa’s partner, described him as having been a happy person who never said much, but who laughed a lot.

“He was always smiling and laughing, that’s all he did. He never said much. You’d try to talk to him, and he went, ‘Oh, yeah’, and then laughed,” Harrison said.

Taubakoa was farewelled in a “moving service” conducted by St Christopher’s Anglican Church in Blenheim, before his body was sent home to Kiribati.

The farewell service in Blenheim for RSE worker Kaiea Taubakoa. Photo / Supplied.

Seconds separated truck and van

According to a summary of facts, rain had fallen overnight in Marlborough and a chill wind was blowing on the morning of June 20 last year.

The roads were wet at 6.31am as the crew got into their van, driven by Kitiona, to start work in a Grovetown vineyard.

Minutes before, Clifford drove his truck out of a yard south of Blenheim bound for a site in Queen Charlotte Drive, in the Marlborough Sounds.

The GPS tracking device in the truck showed his movements through the Blenheim residential area on SH1.

At 6.32am the van was seen on CCTV driving north on Grove Rd. Clifford’s truck was about 200m behind.

As the vehicles approached a bridge, where the speed limit changed soon after from 50km/h to 100km/h, just 18 seconds separated the two vehicles.

The van, with its headlights and taillights on, continued along the well-lit road for about 300m before slowing down and indicating right on to Lower Wairau Rd.

It stopped near the centreline and waited for oncoming traffic before turning.

Police said two cars slowed to pass the van on the left-hand shoulder of the road.

Clifford, who had used his cellphone to activate Spotify and make several phone calls, was 14 seconds behind the stationary van in the middle of the road.

Police said Clifford was on the phone and unable to manoeuvre like the two vehicles before him, and collided with the rear of the van while travelling between 71km/h and 74km/h.

The impact was so great it concertinaed the van as it was shunted 160m down the road, before stopping on a grass verge.

Bad news for close-knit community

Harrison was at work when he heard the news.

“There was a couple of late trucks and they said, ‘Oh, there’s a van that’s been run down’.”

Harrison was worried when he heard “van”, knowing the RSE workers were typically on the road around that time. His fears were confirmed when he heard the van bore the markings of an RSE worker vehicle.

He phoned one of the “boys” in the close-knit Kiribati community, and a team leader told him his translation services would be needed.

“I knew then there’d been an accident, but I didn’t know someone died.”

Taubakoa was killed instantly. Raiwan was flown to Wellington Hospital with severe facial injuries while Kitiona, who was driving, was taken to Wairau Hospital with chest and back injuries.

Taniiti suffered pain and suspected fractures plus a head wound.

Kautunamakin was also taken to Wairau Hospital with multiple rib fractures and open wounds on his left shoulder, right hip, and left thumb.

Teawaki was treated for a sprained neck.

Support advocate for the RSE workers in Blenheim and former truck driver Tokanang Harrison says the stretch of highway where the fatal accident happened was "pretty ugly" at times. Photo / William Woodworth TopSouthMedia

Harrison, a former truck driver who quit through fear of some of the dangerous driving he witnessed on the roads around Marlborough, was initially sympathetic towards Clifford.

He described the stretch of highway where Taubakoa was killed, and further along towards Picton as “pretty ugly at times”.

“I felt his pain, but then from what evidence has been gathered, I don’t commend him on that.

“He could have made it easier, but he sort of fought it, and he was on the phone ... he was on the phone.”

Police said the social cost to the country for every fatal crash was estimated to be around $15.4 million a year.

This included the costs for attendance by police, fire and ambulance plus subsequent inquiries, coroner’s inquests, and criminal proceedings.

The total cost to society of motor vehicle injury crashes was estimated at $4.21 billion a year, including costs associated with hospital intensive care, brain injury units, ongoing rehabilitation, ACC, loss of quality of life, and loss of output due to temporary or permanent incapacitation, plus ongoing medical costs.

Clifford will be sentenced in Blenheim in December.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.