The driver of a tour bus that crashed near Rotorua killing five people, including a child, has been sentenced to four-and-a-half months home detention and disqualified from driving for 18 months.

Junwei Zhang, 40, received the sentence at Rotorua District Court after earlier pleading guilty to five charges of careless driving causing death and eight charges of careless driving causing injury.

The charges stemmed from an incident on September 4 last year when Zhang was driving the bus that contained 23 Chinese tourists, on State Highway 5 just outside Rotorua.

Before Zhang was sentenced Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon read a number of victim impact statements, including one from a passenger who lost his daughter, wife and father in the accident.

'I will not be able to recover from the emotional trauma I suffered,” he said.

He described his wife of 20 years as his soulmate, and said he hadn't spent a single day apart from his five-year-old daughter before the fatal crash.

He said the best part of his day was hugging her on his return from work.

'She was my entire world,” he said.

'This incident has taken away my right to be a father, my right to be a husband, my right to be a son. Now I am only facing sadness, loneliness and confusion. I won't be able to return to my home, it has caused me irreparable harm.

'I don't know how I can start my life again.”

Another victim said the emotional harm of losing her husband is 'indescribable”.

'I have lost all the reasons to live and have often thought of suicide.”

As Gordon read the statements, Zhang, wearing a face mask, sat in-between defence lawyer Laura Owen and a translator with his hands clasped.

The translator did not translate the bulk of the victim impact statements, though she did translate Gordon's submission and the remarks of Judge Marie McKenzie.

The police summary of facts revealed that Zhang, who was not speeding, lost control of the bus after a strong crosswind caused the rear wheels to slip.

At the time the weather conditions were poor with strong winds, cloud and rain.

'When the rear of the bus began to drift, the defendant over corrected which caused the rear of the bus to swing right into the opposing lane and rotate 180 degrees,” the summary said.

'As the bus slid off the road, the rear passengers were jolted right, causing five passengers to be propelled out of the right hand rear windows.

'The bus continued to slide down a small bank where it rolled onto its side on top of the five passengers.”

As well as the five fatalities other passengers were left with injuries including broken ribs, spine fractures, neck fractures and pelvic fractures.

The site of the fatal crash was visited the day after by Chinese ambassador Wu Xi who laid flowers at the scene.

She told Stuff at the time she had been left "traumatised and saddened" by what she described as a tragic incident.

More to follow

Benn Bathgate/Stuff.