By Sarah McPhee
A drunk learner driver who ploughed into a power pole in Sydney’s south-west, injuring his four young passengers days after the Buxton tragedy which killed five teenagers, was “not too far off from having created that situation himself”, a judge has said.
Judge John Pickering on Thursday warned that Jordan Tye Maaka should arrive “expecting the worst”, being jail time, when he is sentenced in January over the crash in Beverly Hills last year.
Jordan Tye Maaka arrives at the Downing Centre District Court for his sentence hearing after injuring four teenagers in a car crash at Beverly Hills.Credit: Nikki Short
“That’s not to indicate what I’m doing, just so that there’s no misunderstanding if that was to be the outcome of the sentencing on the day,” the judge said in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court.
Maaka’s barrister Peter Kondich replied: “We’ve had that conversation, he’s fully aware.”
Maaka’s passengers - two 16-year-old girls, a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy – were injured when the then 18-year-old crashed his mother’s Honda Accord on Stoney Creek Road on September 16, 2022.
According to the agreed facts, Maaka reached speeds of more than 100 km/h in a 50 km/h zone when he had the two boys in the car, and 110 km/h after picking the girls up.
Maaka “passed a bottle of Canadian Club” whisky to one of the boys, and started turning the wheel from side to side.
One girl said, “I want to go home. Can you stop?” and “I’m scared”, to which Maaka replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ll be fine”. The girl also told Maaka to slow down.
Maaka was driving at least 119 km/h when he rounded a bend and lost control before the vehicle mounted the footpath, hit a brick fence and then a power pole.
“The offender was assisted out of the car and taken to the footpath to sit down,” the facts state. “He was crying and repeatedly saying, ‘I’m sorry’.”
The girl who had expressed concern about the speed was knocked unconscious. She suffered hip and pelvic fractures, while the other girl was initially trapped by her legs and sustained severe head injuries including a significant laceration to her neck, exposing bone, and facial nerve damage. She was screaming and asking if her friend was OK.
Five teens were injured after their car hit a pole in Beverly Hills, in Sydney’s south-west, in September 2022.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Maaka held a learner driver’s licence at the time, but it had been suspended since June 2022 due to fine defaults.
“At the time of the collision, the offender’s blood alcohol concentration would have been not less than 0.164 grams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood,” the facts state.
The carnage came 10 days after five teenagers were killed at Buxton, when driver Tyrell Edwards, also then 18, lost control of a ute at speed and ricocheted off two trees. Edwards will be sentenced on Friday on five counts of aggravated dangerous driving causing death.
The judge on Thursday said the timing was a “strange twist of fate” and the two incidents involved “not dissimilar circumstances”.
Pickering said, in one respect, the Buxton crash was “radically different in that it led to the death of five young people in the vehicle”, but in another, “the factual scenario of it has a great degree of similarity” to the Beverly Hills incident.
“He [Maaka] is not too far off from having created that situation himself,” the judge said.
The scene of the car crash on Stoney Creek Road at Beverly Hills.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Pickering said he had a general interest in seeing Judge Christopher O’Brien’s sentencing of Edwards, as the cases each involved multiple young people in a vehicle and driving at high speed.
“I’m very conscious of the difference in sentencing someone in which five people actually died in the vehicle, as opposed to what happened here,” he said.
Maaka, now 19, pleaded guilty earlier this year to aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, at a speed of more than 45 km/h over the limit, three counts of driving furiously causing bodily harm, mid-range drink-driving and driving whilst suspended.
Maaka’s barrister conceded the threshold for a jail sentence had been crossed, but asked the judge to consider whether it could be served in the community rather than full-time imprisonment.
He said Maaka had not spent any time in custody, as he was hospitalised after the crash and then released. The barrister said his client required treatment for conditions including a substance use disorder which could be addressed by professional assistance in the community.
Kondich acknowledged Maaka had made a “stupid decision” to get in the car, and tendered a letter of apology from the teenager.
Maaka will be sentenced on January 23.
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