'I thought I was going to die' officer says of night Lyn Fleming killed

The sound of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming landing on the concrete after she’d been fatally struck by a vehicle on New Year’s morning last year has brought a senior officer to tears in court.

By Mason Herbert and Laura James

It’s day seven of Hayden Tasker’s murder trial at the High Court in Christchurch.

The 33-year-old argues he’s guilty of manslaughter in relation to Fleming’s death, not murder, and has also pleaded not guilty to intentionally causing grievous bodily injury to another officer, Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay.

This morning, Senior Constable Harriet Murray told the court: “If the vehicle had gone straight, there was a clear path, it would not have hit any person.”

Murray was part of a foot patrol team in Nelson central in the early hours of New Years Day 2025.

“I looked up and saw Senior Sergeant Fleming and Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsey sort of leaning with their arms folded, laughing and looking at their staff.”

“I thought, what a moment, I was going to go over and tell them about it later.”

But she never got the chance.

Just a few moments later, her colleagues were mown down by the accused in his white Honda Odyssey.

Through tears, Murray recounted the collision unfolding.

“I turned my head away to see where the vehicle was going… the next thing I heard was a loud bang behind me that almost sounded like a shotgun, but it was the sound of Senior Sergeant Fleming landing... on the concrete behind me.”

"It sounded like a cannon gun."

Fleming was thrown roughly 20-30 metres, suffering unsurvivable injuries.

“I stood over her and looked down, and it still took me a few minutes to realise it was Lyn,” said Murray.

She was one of the first to call for help.

"I used my radio to call a ten ten, requesting that two ambulance come as quickly as possible. I didn't want any them waiting."

After hitting the two officers, Tasker turned around and drove back through Nelson’s Buxton Square at considerable speed.

Constable Kirsten Moir today told the court, “I'd just seen how fast this car had gone, so I was expecting it to hit me at any second and I thought I was going to die".

She said she’d turned and run as fast as she could.

Tasker subsequently rammed into a stationary patrol vehicle and was soon tasered, pulled out of the car, and handcuffed.

The jury heard Moir helped with his arrest. She even called for an ambulance for him.

“He was shaking, kind of looked like potentially seizing,” she recounted.

She said he continued "seizing" for “a significant period of time”.

But soon, another officer who knew Tasker came over, telling Moir: “I know him, that's Hayden from Mot."

"He fakes seizures all the time.”

Moir told the court, upon hearing that, Tasker opened his eyes, looked straight up and said “F*** you” to the sergeant.

“After that did he continue having his seizures?” Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber asked Moir.

“No, not another one,” she replied.

A paramedic who assessed Tasker in a police cell later that morning was quizzed on how “steady” the defendant was.

The defence case is that the now 33-year-old meant to kill himself that night, by way of a police chase.

They said he was depressed, had no job and was sleeping in his car.

The court’s previously heard Tasker’s blood alcohol level was 167 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

He lawyer said that meant he was about three times over the legal limit of 50 milligrams.

The Crown addressed his state of mind in their opening address last week, saying: “He claimed he was drunk and he wasn't thinking of the consequences."

But he also admitted that night that he was aiming for the officers and was aware hitting them may cause death.

“The whole event was an act of completely senseless and pointless violence carried out by the defendant because he was angry at the police,” prosecutor Mark O'Donoghue told the jury in his opening address.

St John paramedic Christopher Simmons was called to help remove the taser barbs in Tasker, after he’d been transferred to the station.

“He appeared sort of jovial, fairly chatty, we had a fairly normal sort of interaction,” Simmons said.

The defendant had told him he’d been drinking, and Simmons confirmed he seemed mildly intoxicated.

“He was obviously walking around the cell, he was obeying commands. When I say that, you know, when you ask someone to do a blood pressure, they will pass you their arm for you to do the blood pressure.”

In cross examination this morning, the paramedic agreed the accused had an “unsteady moment” near the end of his assessment in the hours after the incident.

He called it “one wobble”.

But he felt for the rest of the time he was with Tasker, he was “quite steady”.

“We were both standing for quite a period of time. There's some shuffling and movement but I don't think I could say anything was super unsteady.”

Defence lawyer Marcus Zintl challenged him, saying it looked like he was needing to keep him in place at points, but Simmons said he was just holding his shirt up above the taser barb that was still in Tasker’s skin.

The trial continues.