Father fears a death is next after drink-driver crashes into his backyard
A Maryborough family's years-long campaign for road safety measures proved tragically prophetic when a drunk driver crashed through their fence minutes after the father stood in the same spot.
Leonard Camm and his wife Ashleigh had advocated for years for safety measures to be put in place to prevent an accident on their road before the worst happened in their own backyard.
On the night of October 16, 2025 at 6:50pm, Robert Scott Ainsworth lost control of his van and crashed through the fence of the Camm family home on Russell Street in Maryborough.
Ainsworth, who told police he had consumed his last drink 30 seconds before the crash, was over the limit and blew .139.
Minutes before the crash, Mr Camm was in his backyard with his dog.
Maryborough Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday that Ainsworth and his female passenger blamed each other for the crash.
CCTV footage revealed that it was Ainsworth who was operating the vehicle.
Ainsworth was fined $700, ordered to surrender his licence for five months and to pay $8126.58 in compensation to Mr Camm and his wife for the repair of their fence.
The couple were exasperated by the sentence and predicted the full repayment of the debt could take up to five years because of Ainsworth’s financial situation.
Mr Camm and his wife Ashleigh have four children together, two boys and twin girls, one of whom sadly passed away in 2023.
Their eldest son Jaxon is legally blind and severely disabled, meaning the fence surrounding their home is needed for his safety in high pressure moments.
“Sometimes he gets out of his room and will go outside and jump on the trampoline,” Ms Camm said.
Of most importance to Mr Camm, who is chief petitioner for Resident Safety on Russell Street, is that this incident could have been avoided altogether.
A media statement for Resident Safety revealed “it followed years of documented warnings, emails, petitions, and formal complaints about hooning, dangerous driving, noise impacts, and escalating safety risks”, Mr Camm wrote.
During this long period of campaigning, which was supported by other residents in the area, it was hoped Fraser Coast Regional Council would install some sort of protective barrier or safety infrastructure in Russel Street and the intersecting Alice Street which has a school zone.
Barely a fortnight before the crash, Mr Camm received a reply from the office of the local State MP redirecting his concerns about hooning in the area to the QPS hooning hotline.
“This is no longer just a community concern — it’s evidence of systemic failure,” stated the updated petition.
It was revealed by the couple outside the courthouse on Tuesday that they fear human life will have to be loss before anything is done to prevent accidents on their residential roads.
Mr Camm told the Fraser Coast Chronicle he had lodged a human rights complaint under the Queensland Human Rights Act (2019).
“What happened on 16 October was avoidable — and it should never have taken a vehicle crashing into my backyard, near my children’s bedrooms, to force action,” the media statement read.
