Last updated 10:08, May 15 2018
SCOTT HAMMOND/STUFF
Police investigate the morning after Holdem's 4-wheel-drive rolled off State Highway 6 north of Renwick, near Blenheim.
Police investigate the morning after Holdem's 4-wheel-drive rolled off State Highway 6 north of Renwick, near Blenheim.
A passenger in a crash that killed her friend has described the "scary" driving leading up to the crash, which prompted her to ask the driver, her ex-boyfriend, if she could drive.
But Stewart Douglas Edward Holdem's response was that they were no longer together, and she couldn't tell him what to do.
Holdem, 37, was driving from Nelson to Blenheim when the car left the road near Renwick, west of Blenheim, on March 24 last year, a police summary said.
The crash killed Nelson man Dylan Sutton, 24, and injured two women in the back seat.
One of those women, his ex-girlfriend, gave evidence about Holdem's "scary" driving in the leadup to the crash at a jury trial at the Blenheim District Court on Monday.
Debris shows the path of the truck as it rolled off the highway.
Holdem denied four charges, including one of endangering human life in the absence of precaution or care, causing death, and an alternative charge of driving recklessly causing death.
He also faces two counts of reckless driving causing injury.
"I had already accepted in my mind we might crash," the woman said through tears in the witness box.
They broke up a few weeks before the crash, but were still friends and Holdem drove the woman from Blenheim to Nelson to pick up Sutton and his partner that afternoon.
They were drinking bourbon and cola on the way and stopped twice to smoke methamphetamine, she told the court.
But they argued in Hira and Holdem became "grumpy", the woman said.
After picking up Sutton and his partner, they stopped at a bottle store in Richmond to buy more bourbon and cola, about 8.30pm, and on the way back stopped again in Hira to smoke some more meth.
"[Holdem] was still in a grumpy mood, so he was driving a bit faster than usual," she said.
"I think he was getting a bit paranoid about us in the back seat, because we were talking amongst ourselves."
The women were discussing Holdem's driving, she said.
"It was scary. I was getting wound up as well, and telling him to slow it down. It was too fast. It was just erratic and we could feel that he was grumpy. He wasn't paying enough attention, and he was drinking."
As they drove closer to Blenheim, it seemed Holdem was deliberately trying to scare them, the woman said.
"I asked if I could drive, but he told me we're not together anymore, so I can't tell him what to do. I didn't have my licence at that stage either.
"He would turn the car steering wheel to scare us, and we were in a 4WD so we were afraid we would tip over."
She was apologising to her friend for his driving, she said.
They stopped in Havelock to use the toilet, and Holdem smoked some cannabis, she said.
As they left, the woman sent a message to a friend saying they were just past Havelock, at 10.10pm.
Holdem's driving got faster as they crossed the Kaituna River bridge, she said.
"He might have let go of the steering wheel a couple times, he was definitely going over the lines, and he was speeding," she said.
She could not see the speedometer, but estimated they were going about 120kmh, and it was raining quite heavily, she said.
But she did not want to make him angrier by asking him to stop, and had no other way back to Blenheim, she said.
Then she felt the truck slide off the road, threw herself over her friend and they "all tensed up", before the truck rolled over a bank and landed in a vineyard, she said.
The woman climbed out of the truck to find Holdem pacing about and yelling, she said.
Dylan Sutton died in the crash.
The others were taken to Wairau Hospital, in Blenheim, by ambulance.
Holdem's ex-girlfriend was in hospital for about two weeks, with a break near the top of her neck, a fractured right shoulder, about four broken ribs and cuts to her face.
The woman said she did not speak to Holdem again, except when they ran into each other at the hospital one day.
"He didn't say sorry or anything, or refer to [the other victims] or their families, he just spoke about his injuries which were pretty much superficial."
Holdem's lawyer Tony Bamford said his ex-girlfriend was "spinning" her story, to make Holdem's driving sound worse than it was.
Bamford also asked why they did not try to arrange another way home when they stopped in Havelock, if the driving was so scary.
"In hindsight, yeah, we should have done. But his driving wasn't so bad then, it only got worse on the way to Blenheim," she said.
The woman sent her last text message before the crash at 10.32pm, which was 22 minutes after she sent the message saying they had left Havelock - but Google Maps said the drive only took 16 minutes, Bamford said.
"But you said he was driving at high speed ... Your evidence is flip-flopping on a number of these examples," Bamford said.
"You're trying to make [Holdem] sound like the worst driver in the world, because you know it's the only way he will get convicted of manslaughter."
"[He's] got to live with this for the rest of his life," the woman answered.
"I don't care if he goes to jail or not ... I just want him to atone for what he's done for himself and for the families."
The trial was expected to run for two weeks.