Family of Oatlands crash victim Veronique Sakr call for five-year ban for Brisbane Bronco Ezra Mam
The mother of Oatlands crash victim Veronique Sakr says the lenient sentence given to Ezra Mam “retraumatised me” on what would have been her daughter’s 16th birthday.
NRL
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The family of Oatlands crash victim Veronique Sakr say they felt “sick in the stomach” at a sentence handed to Brisbane Broncos star Ezra Mam they claim is a “pathetic slap on the wrist.”
An “enraged” Bridget Sakr, Veronique’s mother, demanded Mam be banned from playing NRL for five years.
Mam was fined $850 and disqualified for driving for six months after injuring three people in a head-on crash in October after pleading guilty to one count of driving while relevant drug is present in blood, and driving without a licence.
“I thought it was disgraceful and it has retraumatised me,” Bridget Sakr said of Mam’s punishment.
Leading Sydney criminal lawyer Paul McGirr also condemned the sentence as “extremely lenient and well and truly fails the pub test.”
Mam’s drug-driving drama invoked painful memories for Bridget and husband Craig Mackenzie, who lost their daughter Veronique, aged 11, and her three cousins – Antony, Angelina and Sienna Abdallah – when a speeding car, driven by a drug and alcohol fuelled driver, mounted a curb and ran over the children as they were walking to buy ice cream in Sydney’s northwest in February, 2020.
While the circumstances of Mam’s offending were very different, including no allegation Mam had been speeding or drinking, Sakr and Mackenzie felt compelled to express their disgust at Mam’s forgiving sentence and Queensland’s “failed” judicial system.
Heartbreakingly, Mam’s court decision came on Monday, Veronique’s 16th birthday.
“On Monday, the same day the (Mam) court case (was announced), my daughter celebrated her 16th birthday in heaven. She’s not with us anymore. I don’t want any other family to celebrate their child’s birthday where they can’t blow out the candles themselves. It is the most painful thing a parent can go through,” Sakr said.
“I have a photo of Veronique with a cake with 16 on it – but there’s no Veronique. What would have happened if those in the (Mam) accident had died?
“And this person gets a slap on the wrist – what is that? What does society learn from that penalty? It enraged me, it’s unacceptable. I feel sick because I know what it feels like. I have lived the experience of losing my flesh and blood.
“How do people get away with this? What message does this punishment send to the Australian community, that somebody who gets behind the wheel having taken substances – and they know what the consequences can be – that they can’t control their destiny.
“You can do what you want if you’re a person of public profile or professional footballer? Do you get an exemption for your wrongdoings? The NRL and Broncos shouldn’t tip-toe around the edges, they have to take a harsh stance. Someone has to step up.
“He should be suspended for five years – to feel the impact of what that means. No-one else dares to do anything harsh – a five-year suspension for anybody that does this. Their career would be ruined because they have taken that risk.”
The NRL Integrity Unit is finalising its investigation and could release Mam’s punishment by Christmas but more likely next year with the 21-year-old facing a lengthy suspension and heavy fine.
Like Sakr, Mackenzie was equally outraged at Mam’s sentence.
“In the five years since we lost the children, I have never publicly commented on individual cases but this one really was an outlier that made me sick to my stomach. It was so obviously bad that we felt the need to step in and make a comment,” he said.
“Veronique was one of the four children killed at Oatlands when a drug-affected and drunk driver lost control of his vehicle at excessive speed and smashed into seven children walking on the footpath to get an ice cream. Four died, including my step daughter Veronique.
“You can only begin to imagine the devastation this caused my family and the other two families involved, not to mention extended families, friends and the broader community.
“So to see the outcome of the Ezra Man outcome made me sick to my stomach. These footballers want to take all the coin and adulation they can get, but yet accept none of the responsibility.
“I cannot help but think that the outcome in this case was even more lenient than is usually the case because this idiot was a Broncos player, and a good one at that.
“This needs to be called out publicly. The judiciary around the country is so out of touch with community standards with respect to their approach to serious road crime, treating most things as an ‘accident’.
“This case was far from an accident – the word accident has an in-built excuse in it – it was the inevitable consequence of Man intentionally getting behind the wheel and knowingly he was unlicensed and driving (while relevant drug is present in blood).
“He is so lucky no-one was killed. Yet he escapes with no conviction whatsoever. It’s a joke.
“It may offend some Broncos hierarchy, but so what. This type of behaviour cannot go unpunished and ‘uncritiqued’.”
Sakr and Mackenzie questioned how and why Mam was handed what appears to be a light sentence.
“Is it because he’s a footballer? Because of the law in Queensland? Sadly in Queensland, in this case, the police let us down by reducing the charges to next to nothing, and the Queensland courts, the judiciary, the judge has let society down by basically giving him a slap on the wrist,” Mackenzie said.
“We have a big problem as a society and it’s only through institutions that we can address and fix this problem. Who can we look to? We can look to the lawmakers to impose tougher laws around serious road crime because the judges aren’t doing their job.
“Queensland’s justice system has failed to deliver justice so it’s now up to the NRL and the Broncos.
“The courts have sent their own pathetic message so it’s important for the NRL and Broncos to determine what sort of organisation they want to be and what they want to stand for – to send a message to society and all rugby league supporters that this is not okay. It’s the only way society will change.
“Road trauma across Australia costs our community $30 billion dollars a year, $9 billion in NSW. Last year we lost 1266 people on Australian roads – this is the economic cost of hospitalisation, care, lack of employment and that’s before you measure the human cost.
“They have the opportunity to set standards for their staff and players when it comes to committing a crime and putting people’s lives at risk. Those (injured by Mam) were in an Uber. They have the right to get home safely and not to have some idiot driving at them on the other side of the road.”
The car which killed the four children in Oatlands was driven by Samuel Davidson, who was under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He had a 28-year jail sentence reduced to 20 years on appeal with a non-parole period of 15 years.
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Originally published as Family of Oatlands crash victim Veronique Sakr call for five-year ban for Brisbane Bronco Ezra Mam
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