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The mother of two teenage girls
killed in a car crash on Christmas Day 2011
has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.
Phillippa Morehu (37)
and two other defendants are standing trial
in the High Court in Hamilton on two counts of manslaughter
following the deaths of her two daughters,
Brooklyn Morehu-Clark (13) and Merepeka Morehu-Clark (14).
The mother of two teens killed in car crash on Christmas Day 2011
has gone on trial this morning.
It's alleged that the cars were in a race
that ended in their deaths.
Merepeka Morehu-Clark (14) and her sister, Brooklyn Morehu-Clark (13),
were killed on this Tauranga road after the car they were in crashed.
This morning in Hamilton's High Court
Phillippa Vanessa Morehu (37) and the girls' cousins
Hetaraka Hikurangi Reihana (21) and Haki Tepuere Davey (18)
pleaded not guilty to two charges each
of dangerous driving causing death.
Reihana was alleged to have been driving the car in which the sisters
were back-seat passengers.
The Crown prosecutor told the jury
that Reihana was drunk and unlicensed when he went
to overtake Morehu, causing the collision.
Miraculously, the driver escaped relatively unscathed,
but the two sisters, who were not wearing seat belts,
were thrown from Reihana's vehicle and killed instantly.
He said 'alcohol-fuelled madness'
led to the death of the two young sisters that day.
The trial is set down for three weeks
in front of Justice Murray Gilbert
and a jury of two men and 10 women.
Tini Molyneux, Te Karere.