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• Geoffrey and Karen Boucher were killed when they were struck by a motorcycle while crossing State Highway 2 in July 2022.
• A 60-year-old man with interim name suppression is being tried for manslaughter in the High Court at Rotorua.
• The Crown claims he was speeding and didn’t stop at the light. His lawyer says the pedestrian crossing is “inherently dangerous”.

Graham and Barbara Mitchell had been to the movies and were heading home to Ōmokoroa when, as they came along Moffat Rd towards the Bethlehem roundabout near Tauranga, they heard the loud noise of a motorbike.

They saw a bike as it “shot through the roundabout” and as they turned left to follow in its path were confronted with the “aftermath” of a collision.

The motorcycle had struck a couple in their late 50s, who’d been crossing State Highway 2 at a traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing after having dinner out in Bethlehem.

The 60-year-old motorcyclist, who can’t be named for legal reasons, is on trial in the High Court at Rotorua, charged with manslaughter.

Both Mitchells gave evidence about their drive on a “clear” and “quiet” Friday night on the road on July 22, 2022.

As they came up to the Bethlehem roundabout, they spotted the bike they’d heard approaching.

“I made the comment to my wife at the time, ‘just as well no one was on that roundabout, because they would have taken him out’,” Graham Mitchell said in court.

“He couldn’t have stopped, there would have been no way he could have stopped.”

Mitchell said when they came around the corner they saw the motorbike lying on its side, just beyond the traffic lights.

Barbara Mitchell parked in the left lane, put on the vehicle’s hazard lights and got out to help.

They’d been so focused on the motorbike, they hadn’t seen a woman lying on the edge of the road, level to where they had stopped.

As they pulled up, the rider and a passenger on the bike were still in the roadway.

“There was absolute bedlam going on up there, people running around all over the place,” Graham Mitchell said.

Barbara Mitchell realised there was a man trapped under the bike and got help from those in a nearby Pizza Hut to lift it.

Meanwhile, the bike passenger made her way to the raised concrete outside the Pizza Hut. Staff provided her with blankets and she was later assessed as having minor injuries but was taken to hospital to be checked.

Graham Mitchell found it difficult to know exactly how long everything had taken after they arrived at the scene.

“Time seemed to stand still up there,” he said.

The Bethlehem pedestrian crossing where Geoffrey and Karen Boucher were killed. Photo / Mead Norton

Saw something ‘fly up in the air’

At the point of the collision, Sarah Davies had been parked at the back of the Pizza Hut, which is near the pedestrian crossing, as she waited to collect a family member.

As she reached to put her phone away, she saw something “fly up in the air” but wasn’t sure what it was.

She went to the road and saw the motorbike on its side.

The rider had been trying to get up from lying on the back of the bike, which was on its side, and she encouraged him to stay still while she sought help.

The man continued to get up slowly and as he started to walk away, Davies heard someone shout there was someone trapped under the bike.

Davies called 111 and spent the rest of the time talking to police communications and helping stop traffic as more people arrived at the scene.

Paramedic saw injuries were ‘not compatible with life’

Two nurses at the scene immediately noticed the injured couple were “in a bad way”.

Nurse Andrea Phillips said she first went to the woman lying on the ground and, based on her experience, felt the woman was in “her final moments of her life” and there was nothing she could do.

She turned her attention to the man who’d been under the motorcycle but said she could tell as she did chest compressions he had serious internal injuries.

St John ambulance staff took over and confirmed the man had passed.

Phillips went and sat by the Pizza Hut and told the court she heard the motorcycle rider speaking on a phone.

He’d asked someone to collect his bike “before the cops took it”, she said.

CPR was performed on both victims; the motorcycle rider was giving Karen Boucher chest compressions when emergency services arrived.

Karen and Geoffrey Boucher both died at the scene of the collision.

St John critical care paramedic Kurt Golding said he told the rider to stop what he was doing so he could check for signs of life.

Golding realised she was in a “flatline state” and there was nothing that could be done.

Before this, he’d assessed Geoffrey Boucher and said that based on his experience and pulse checks, Boucher’s injuries were “not compatible with life”.

Golding said his efforts to assess the rider had been hindered by the rider’s concern about finding his bag and taking phone calls about getting his bike collected.

Golding said he’d been surprised the rider hadn’t made inquiries about the victims, as “a lot of people ask how the other people are doing”.

Ron Mansfield, KC, the rider’s lawyer, asked Golding if, when he attends serious incidents, he sees people react to those kinds of situations in a variety of ways.

“A hundred per cent, yes,” Golding said.

The trial continues.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at ��һ�ǿ�����. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at ��һ�ǿ�����talk ZB.