A man who crashed a truck full of bobby calves has not been charged with causing his 4-year-old passenger's death.
The child died in the early hours of January 13 after Ross William Smaill (56) drove off SH1 near Edendale, trying to let other vehicles pass.
The 12-tonne truck ended up rolling down a grass bank and crashing through a fence before it came to a rest on its side.
The 4-year-old boy and his 6-year-old twin siblings were able to pull themselves out of the wreckage but the younger victim died in an ambulance.
Smaill was charged with operating a service in an unlicensed vehicle – under the Land Transport Act - and three counts of careless driving causing injury.
He pleaded guilty today.
Sergeant Chris George explained to the the Dunedin District Court this morning that the defendant was not charged with causing the fatality because the boy's cause of death was ruled to be a cardiac arrest.
The court heard Smaill lived on a small farm outside Dunedin and the children he took in the truck were his neighbour's – close friends of the defendant.
They set off at 5pm on January 12 to Invercargill to purchase calves from several addresses.
Smaill visited three farms on the way, picking up 23 calves from Milton and six from two farms further south.
They left Invercargill in the early hours of the following day but the defendant had not had the minimum amount of rest – 10 hours in a 24-hour period.
Court documents also revealed that due to the size of the vehicle, Smaill had to have an approved transport service licence.
He did not.
And the licence the defendant displayed at the time belonged to a friend.
Smaill had held both passenger and goods service licences but they were revoked by the New Zealand Transport Agency in 2015.
The defendant, who slowly moved around the court with the aid of a stick, was injured in the crash, the court heard.
The 6-year-old twins also suffered cuts and bruising to various parts of their body.
When Smaill was interviewed by police, he said the accident had been caused by him moving over too far to let traffic pass on the wet road.
A number of the bobby calves were put down as a result of the crash.
Smaill was remanded at large and will be sentenced at the end of next month.
