Drunk driver gets two years for Frank van Kampen death

BY ALASTAIR STEWART

The drunk driving killer of an Otaki father could be out of jail by Christmas.

Alison Mary Downer, 71, was sentenced to two years and two months jail in Palmerston North District Court yesterday for killing 46-year-old Frank van Kampen on State Highway 1 in Te Horo in September. With no minimum sentence, she would be eligible for parole in just over eight months.

She was ordered to pay $30,000 in reparation and disqualified from driving for eight years. "You should never be provided with a licence again", said Judge Les Atkins as he awarded a sentence of half the maximum five years possible for the excess breath alcohol causing death conviction.

It followed an emotional hearing that was forced into a 10-minute recess to allow Mr van Kampen's grieving partner Jude Pauwels to calm herself.

Downer showed no emotion when the sentence was announced.

The court heard victim impact statements from Mr van Kampen's family and a friend that described a man who "embraced life with open arms".

That life was taken on September 18 last year. While cycling home from Kapanui School, where he worked as a teacher, Mr van Kampen was killed just south of Te Horo when Downer crashed into him from behind sending his "lifeless body flinging through the air", said Ron Chatters, a friend and colleague of van Kampen who witnessed the crash.

Downer was heavily intoxicated. More than an hour after the crash she still recorded an alcohol reading of 716 micrograms per litre of breath, close to twice the legal limit. It was the fourth time she had been caught drunk driving, with offences in 1991, 2001, and 2003. Two of those offences involved breath alcohol readings of over 1000mcg.

In a victim impact statement, read by a support officer as Ms Pauwels sat crying, the fiancee of Mr van Kampen said she struggled to sleep and eat and suffered nightmares from that day. "I will never recover from this. My life is empty without Frank. I never got a chance to say goodbye. He was brought back to me in a coffin."

The last words Mr van Kampen spoke to his fiancee, as he put in reflective cycling safety gear was: 'No one will miss me with this on.'

Ms Pauwels said at least she carried memories of her to-be-husband, a luxury their seven-month old daughter, Alexandra, would never have. "She will miss out on having the best dad in the world because that is what he was."

Mr van Kampen's stepson Dante, 13, described the numbness he felt when he saw a police officer walking though their gate to deliver the news. "I froze, couldn't move. My mum screamed."

Though Mr Chatters was disappointed with the length of sentence, he was pleased Downer would spend time behind bars, alleviating fears of a home detention sentence.

Judge Atkins said consideration of Downer's early guilty plea and private displays of "genuine" remorse had to be taken into account. He noted Downer's troubled past, which included violence and the death of her two-year old daughter. She struggled with an alcohol addiction and depression.

- Kapiti Observer