17yo pleads guilty to fatal Edinburgh RAAF crash that killed Atem Kuany
The boy who caused the horror police chase and crash that left his friend dead at the Edinburgh RAAF base will be sentenced as an adult, a judge has decided.
North & North East
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The boy who caused the horror police chase and crash that left his friend dead will be sentenced as an adult.
The 17-year-old, from Craigmore, has been behind bars on remand since the crash in mid-September last year, after fleeing the scene of the crime.
Judge Penny Eldridge told the Adelaide Youth Court on Monday she was allowing the appeal and made an order the youth be dealt with the same way as an adult.
The Department of Public Prosecutions previously made the application for the higher courts to hear the youth’s matter.
The effect means the teen will be sentenced in the District Court and face significantly harsher penalties.
The application can be made based on the “gravity” of the offences and because the offences are “part of a pattern of repeat offending”.
It also states the application can be made if the DPP decides “the youth poses an appreciable risk to the safety of the community”.
The teen, who cannot legally be named, was arrested in the immediate wake of the crash and charged with a litany of offences.
He pleaded guilty in July to aggravated causing death by dangerous driving, two counts of causing harm by dangerous driving and leaving accident scene after causing death.
Police said the crash occurred at the Edinburgh RAAF military facility after the car was initially spotted by police on Petherton Road at Andrews Farm.
They said they did not pursue the car and lost sight of it, though court documents showed the aggravating feature of the teen’s charges was that he was “attempting to escape a police pursuit”.
Atem Kuany, the 17-year-old who died in the crash, was left dying on the ground when the teen, and two other passengers, allegedly left the scene of the crash.
The two other passengers, a 21-year- old man from Melton in Victoria and an 18-year-old woman from Elizabeth South, were both taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
On Monday, Judge Eldridge committed the youth to the District Court and adjourned his charges until October.
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