The mother of the young teen killed by hit-and-run driver Rouxle Le Roux is appealing for calm after her son's killer began receiving death threats.
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Nathan Kraatskow, 15, died when Le Roux hit him as he was riding his bike through an Albany intersection in May. Le Roux, a learner driver, had consumed wine and cannabis earlier that day.
She handed herself into police 16 hours later.
The 19-year-old has become a nationally reviled figure since she was sentenced to home detention on Friday - and is reportedly being targeted by angry members of the public.
"On Saturday night she had people outside her house, screaming that they want to kill her," her lawyer Belinda Sellars told NZME.
"She has been too afraid to sleep. It has been really frightening for her."
Now Nathan's mother, Charlene Kraatskow, has issued a public plea for people to leave Le Roux alone.
"We did not do this for people to harass her and to go to her house," she posted on Facebook.
"Please that is not what we want. Leave her alone and let the justice system do what it has to!"
Ms Kraatskow has been fighting for a harsher sentence by launching a petition for the sentence to be appealed. It's received over 150,000 signatures.
Ms Kraatskow told Newshub the petition was about "getting justice for my son".
"Our 15 year-old son Nathan was killed in a hit-and-run and the 19-year-old girl that killed him while under the influence of drugs and alcohol only got 11 months home detention," the petition says.
"What about my son, where is the justice here."
Newshub.
