A NEW Zealand man has pleaded guilty to the careless use of a firearm over the death of a school teacher who was shot after being mistaken for a possum.

Andrew Neville Mears, 25, pleaded guilty to the charge in Taupo District Court this morning.
It was alleged the Hamilton man was illegally spotlighting from a moving vehicle when he fired a shot that killed Rosemary Ives, 25, on October 22.

The victim was on a camping holiday with her boyfriend and was killed while she was brushing her teeth, when Mears mistook her headlamp for the eyes of a possum. The fatal shot was believed to have been fired about midnight from a distance of 15 to 26 metres.

Ms Ives' father, Malcolm Ives, said he had no interest in the case.

He and the family were more focused on dealing with the loss of their daughter, he said.

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Outside court today, Mears' lawyer Roger Laybourne read a statement from the accused to the victim's family, news website stuff.co.nz reported.

In it Mears said he wanted to convey "my absolute sorrow and remorse for being the person responsible for taking the life of Rosemary"."I am sorry for the dreadful loss I have caused to you all," Mr Laybourne read.

Immediately after the shooting, Mears said, he handed all his hunting gear to his wife to take away.

"I do not want to ever have anything to do with hunting again.

"Nor do I want my infant son to."

Mr Laybourne said Mears had not intended to go hunting that night after arriving with friends to set up camp and went to sleep in his tent.However, his friends had seen deer on the roadside and woke him to go searching for the animals.
Mr Laybourne said this spontaneous decision to go hunting was not to be seen as an excuse for what had happened.

The Crown is considering more serious charges.
Mears was remanded on bail until November 18.

George W Bush considered dumping Dick Cheney - book

FORMER US president George W Bush admits he considered dropping Dick Cheney ahead of his re-election run, but defends his vice president as well as the invasion of Iraq in a new autobiography.

The memoir, Decision Points, is due out next week and will break Mr Bush's relative silence since he made way for President Barack Obama two years ago.

According to the New York Times, Mr Bush uses the book to defend his record, predicting that history will judge him better than voters, who gave him rock-bottom approval ratings as he finished his second term.

Addressing the issue of his abrasive and hawkish vice president, Mr Bush says that he spent weeks considering an offer by Cheney to drop from their 2004 re-election ticket.

"I did consider the offer," Mr Bush writes, according to the Times, quoting an advance copy of Decision Points.

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"While Dick helped with important parts of our base, he had become a lightning rod for criticism from the media and the left," Mr Bush says. "He was seen as dark and heartless - the Darth Vader of the administration."

Ultimately, Mr Bush thought that he needed Mr Cheney to "help me do the job" and the pair went on to win another four years in the White House.

Mr Bush calls the invasion of Iraq justified, saying that "the Iraqi people are better off with a government that answers to them instead of torturing and murdering them".

However, he only admits to a "sickening feeling" on learning that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq - nullifying the claim made by Washington as the basis for the invasion and occupation of the country.

He defends his decision to allow what have been called harsh interrogation techniques or torture, such as near-drowning, against terrorism suspects.

He says the techniques "saved lives" and that in response to a CIA request to use waterboarding against the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, he answered: "Damn right."