Hayden Tasker guilty of murdering Nelson police officer Lyn Fleming

A jury has found Hayden Tasker guilty of murdering senior policewoman Lyn Fleming and intentionally causing grievous bodily harm to senior sergeant Adam Ramsay,

Tasker drove his car into the pair on foot patrol in Nelson in the early hours of New Year's Day last year.

The jury deliberated for about three and a half hours.

Tasker was also formally convicted on three additional charges of dangerous driving and dangerous driving causing injury. He was due to be sentenced on July 24. The judge called for a pre-sentence report and victim impact statements to be prepared.

He also thanked the jury, describing the trial as "at times difficult" and "harrowing".

It should have been like any other New Year’s Eve for police on the central Nelson beat, making sure revellers were safe.

But for two officers, out patrolling central Nelson on the morning of January 1 last year, the night didn’t end like any other.

Not long after 2am, Senior Sergeants Lyn Fleming and Adam Ramsay were chatting to two other officers seated in a red police car in Buxton Square - “having some banter” - as one of them put it during the trial.

Another officer on duty in the square had been watching them, thinking how happy they looked – a moment she was going to relay to them later.

Then suddenly, a white Honda Odyssey – with Tasker at the wheel – came flying through the carpark, diagonally.

Fleming and Ramsay only had time to “get out half a yell and not even take sort of half a step”, one of the officers in the red car recalled, before they were thrown into the air.

Many witnesses in court described seeing them flying, some using the word “somersaulting”, others saying “rag dolling”.

The car sped off, before looping back again and ramming into a police car that had been sitting parked in the square.

Chaos ensued.

An officer drove his car into the back of the offending vehicle, trying to trap it, as members of the public also sprung into action.

One man boldly reached into the driver’s car to turn off the engine and try and grab his keys.

In his evidence, Samuel Hodges said he felt it was “a fight or flight situation”, fearing the vehicle could do even more damage if got out onto the street.

Colleagues who raced to Senior Sergeant Fleming's aid didn't realise it was her at first and detailed her poor state in court.

Some immediately knew she was dead.

The jury heard four people took turns at giving CPR compressions, including Constable Molly Inman.

“At one point, I was doing compressions, she tried to take a breath but there was a lot of blood in her throat,” she told the jury.

Senior Sergeant Ramsay, who suffered critical injuries and is still recovering from the incident, also gave evidence.

“I just remember hearing a loud engine noise, and I remember thinking, that's loud. This is the car park. Someone's going quite fast and I remember looking and just seeing a set of headlights at that point I just remember thinking f*** and then that's the last thing I can remember,” the court heard.

His colleague Constable Jonathan Fris was one of the officers Fleming and Ramsay were talking to just before they were hit.

"There was a flash of white as the car went past my window and just hit a massive bang and then sort of I looked up I could see just their bodies and police uniform tumbling through the air,” he said in his evidence.

Tasker’s defence was he was guilty of manslaughter, not murder, in relation to Fleming's death.

He argued he was drunk and depressed, and only intended to kill himself that night.

The now 33-year-old was three times over the legal alcohol limit when he was arrested.

In his formal police interview, played to the court, he said: “Was just gonna like ram into some cops and then they would start chasing me but then I would get away kind of like on a movie,” he said.

“My intention was that they would get away and then they would start chasing me,” he reiterated.

The jury heard details of his life circumstances, including the loss of his dad at the age of 16, how he was struggling following a relationship split and that he was unemployed and sleeping in his car at the time of the attack.

After being informed during the interview of the charges he would face – including one of murder - he was seen and heard crying, asking to call his family.

The video showed him with his head in his hands looking down at the floor, at multiple occasions.

“It's a lot for me to take in,” he relayed, emotively, to the detective.

“I didn't realise one of your officers died... it really has affected me.”

“All I can say is that I'm sorry to the family.”

He said no-one should ever be killed on the job, admitting he had “punished” a family “in the worst possible way”.

His lawyer Marcus Zintl told the jury: “The consequences of Mr Tasker's dangerous driving... were despicable, deplorable and dreadful. But that does not make him guilty of murder.”

But the Crown boiled its case down to "man angry with police kills police officer”.

Prosecutor Jackson Webber said: “This was no accident, no mistake, no manslaughter. The Crown submits to you, members of the jury, that it was obvious, this was murder.”

"Senior Sergeant Fleming died because the defendant Hayden Tasker, motivated by anger towards the police, made the decision to use his vehicle as a weapon and intentionally drive it into her," he summarised.

The jury agreed with that version of events.