The man who murdered Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming in Nelson has been sentenced to at least 22 years behind bars.
In May, Hayden Tasker was found guilty of her murder by a jury and of injuring Fleming’s colleague, Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay.
In the High Court at Nelson today, Justice Cameron Mander sentenced Tasker to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 22 years.
Tasker did not react as the sentence was handed down.
Justice Mander said Fleming’s death is an "irreparable loss that cannot be mitigated by any sentence that I impose today".
"There is no sentence that I can impose which would be commensurate with the value of Lyn Fleming's life or could have been."
Tasker, 33, drove his car into the pair while they were on foot patrol in central Nelson in the early hours of New Year's Day last year.
At sentencing today, several members of Fleming’s family gave victim impact statements.
Her husband Bryn Olsen spoke directly to Tasker.
"I wanted to be clear that, after today, I will not give you another thought. The harm you caused will always be part of our lives, but it will not define Lyn, her family or those who loved and respected her.
"Lyn will be remembered and you will be forgotten.
“Your actions that day were cowardly, your refusal to accept responsibility for those actions was cowardly. I just hope that the sentence you receive is long enough that, by the time you are released, you're too old to hurt anybody else. After today, you cease to occupy any space in my thoughts."
'Honour and a privilege to be the son of Lyn Fleming'
Fleming’s son Aren Olsen said it had always been an "honour and a privilege to be the son of Lyn Fleming".
He told the court he was a lesser person for having "lived through this nightmare".
"I feel detached and isolated, like watching my own life play out through a stranger's eyes."
He added that he condemned the offender for his actions but refused to allow himself to hate him.
"He's stolen too much from me and from this family and I deny him the right to take any more. Lyn Fleming will never be able to return to her community. Knowing that he will one day be eligible to walk amongst us again, offends any sense of balance and brightness in the world.
"If there is any justice to be had, I believe it will come from my mother having an enduring legacy of aroha for her family and for her community while the name and deeds of the person whose cowardice took her from us is erased from time and memory."
'The weight of my loss is suffocating'
Fleming's daughter Rayna Olsen said her mum was her best friend.
"I have no words to describe the impact her death has had on me… losing her has devastated every part of my life."
She emotionally told the court she was five months pregnant when her mum died.
"He was her first grandchild, a grandchild she was so excited to meet… I never got to see and experience my mum being a grandparent, she never got to see me being a mum."
She said she’d not only lost her mother.
"I have lost the life I thought I would share with her. The future memories that we will never make and the version of myself that existed only when she was here. The weight of my loss is suffocating and I am drowning in it."
Fleming’s sister Jo Brown spoke about how she sometimes dreamt that her sister had been on holiday.
"…and then I'll wake up really happy, then reality kicks in.
"Who would have ever thought that, by simply putting on her blue uniform, which she was so proud of, going out to protect the public on a night of celebration would lead to her death," Brown said.
"Watching Mr Tasker state he was sorry to the family was truly offensive. Actions speak louder than words and, if you were truly sorry, you would have owned up to what you'd done."
Ramsay, the other officer injured on the night, said it was still difficult to reconcile the escalation of events that occurred in the early hours of January 1, 2025.
"It feels like, in one moment, Lyn and I were policing in the same way we had been for years… the next she was fatally wounded, I was critically injured."
Speaking directly to the murderer, he said "you cannot be oblivious to the impact, the actions that you have had on every person, police and civilian who witnessed the violent act you committed that sent me flying through the air and took Lyn's life".
He said Tasker only had to consider those that took the stand to give evidence at his trial.
"You heard about their injuries, their actions, and you saw first hand how they still, over a year later, can't think about what they witnessed without breaking down, what you saw represents only a fraction of the impact you've had every day.
“The most significant recurring thought that I have is how senseless, how needless, this whole tragic situation is.”
He said he feels anger that so many people were affected by that night.
“You will soon have years in a concrete box to reflect on the decisions you made that led to Lyn's murder. And I hope that time feels as vast and empty as the void her death has left for her family and all those who loved her. Senseless, needless, tragic a waste of life in every regard and the fact that you can't even make eye contact with me, as I'm saying this to you, speaks volumes.”
Nelson Bays Area Commander Inspector Steve Collins said January 1 was now a date that will forever form part of policing history for all the wrong reasons.
“It will be a day I will always remember for the rest of my life as will my colleagues, the first female police officer to be killed on duty. The first senior sergeant. The first from Nelson,” he said.
A night of tragedy
It should have been like any other New Year’s Eve for police on the central Nelson beat, ensuring 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, Fleming and Ramsay were chatting to two other officers seated in a red police car in Buxton Square.
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.
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 sprang into action.
One man boldly reached into the driver’s car to turn off the engine and try to 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 it got out onto the street.
Colleagues who raced to Fleming's aid didn't realise it was her at first and detailed her poor state in court.
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.
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.
'I'm sorry to the family'
Jury shown police interview with Hayden Tasker shortly after he drove at a police patrol, killing one officer and injuring others. (Source: 1News)
Tasker’s defence was that he was guilty of manslaughter, not murder.
He argued he was drunk and depressed, and only intended to kill himself that night.
He 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 father 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".
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