The passenger of a vehicle that killed an Invercargill nurse and injured her family was today sentenced to two and a half years in prison for inciting and encouraging reckless driving. 

Taine Reupena Tata Bryn Edwards, 22, was found guilty at a jury trial in September of being party to manslaughter by inciting and encouraging reckless driving. He has also been convicted of three charges of inciting and encouraging reckless driving causing injury.

He appeared in the High Court in Invercargill today (November 25) for sentencing by Justice Cameron Mander.

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For the manslaughter charge, he received two years and six months in prison, was disqualified from driving for three years and ordered to pay $12,000 in reparation costs.

He was also sentenced to 18 months in prison for the three charges of inciting and encouraging reckless driving causing injury. This term will run concurrently with the first sentence.

Invercargill nurse Emma Joyce Bagley died on December 7, 2018, after the car she was driving was struck by a speeding vehicle driven by Dejay Rawiri Kane.

Edwards was a passenger of Kane's vehicle.

Kane was driving the vehicle at 121 kmh in a 50 km/h speed zone when it T-boned Ms Bagley's car on the corner of Newcastle and Clifton Streets in the suburb of Windsor.

Ms Bagley's three passengers, her husband and two children, were injured.

Kane pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter and reckless driving causing injury and was sentenced to over four years in prison.