A man who crashed a jet boat on the Hollyford River last year, which resulted in the death of one passenger onboard, has been ordered to pay $25,000 in reparation costs to the partner of the deceased and fined $3000 in the Invercargill District Court today. 

Paul Ernest Turner, 43, of Gowan Hill, Southland, had been driving the boat on March 18, 2019, under the influence of alcohol in "dim", early evening light when the boat hit a shallow rock, flinging all the passengers on board onto a gravel island. 

Two passengers were seriously injured and one, Mr Gibbons later died at the scene. 

Turner was charged with operating the boat in a dangerous manner, causing unnecessary danger to those on board under section 65 of the Maritime Transport Act 1994. 

The maximum penalty for the offence carries a one-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine.

Turner had consumed eight beers throughout the afternoon and evening and even though at the time, Turner said he hadn’t “felt drunk,” senior police prosecutor Grant Gerken said Turner’s blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit had he been driving a car on the road.

Judge R J Walker said the alcohol consumption and the poor visibility in the early evening light were the biggest "aggravating factors" of the accident. An accident that "should never have happened".

Ms Bridget Speight, partner of the late Shane David Gibbons, read aloud her victim impact statement in court.

She said losing her partner of 30 years has been heart-breaking and five months after the accident, suffering from acute anxiety, she wrote in her diary: "I don't feel like being brave anymore".

Ms Speight said running their family farm without Mr Gibbons had taken a significant emotional and financial toll on her and her family as she’d had to spend time and energy finding a replacement farm manager, which had left her "no time to grieve".

She said she went nine months going without answers as to what happened to her partner the day he died. 

"It wasn't until December... that I was able to talk to one of the first medical responders that they said they had worked on Shane for 20 minutes [before he died]."

She said selling the farm wasn't an option as it had been in her family for 100 years.

"It's something you just don't sell," she said. 

Victim impact statements from her two children were also read in court by senior police prosecutor Grant Gerken. They spoke of how hard life had been since their father had died. 

Defence Lawyer Mr Garth Gallaway said Turner had shown deep and sincere remorse and had entered a guilty plea at the earliest possible time. 

He also said the fact that Turner had willingly taken part in restorative justice, had no previous convictions, had excellent character references, volunteered within his community and had no previous convictions should be mitigating factors that were considered by the judge when deciding his sentence. 

Judge Walker took into account these mitigating factors when sentencing Turner but also made the point of noting that there was "nothing the court can say or do" that would come close to making up for the "magnitude" of the family's loss. 

"There is no set way of dealing with cases like this when a life is tragically lost," he said.