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...