Jordan Brown, driver of Bilpin triple-fatal sentenced to four years jail
A YOUNG driver who killed his three friends when he fell asleep at the wheel after a drug-fuelled weekend dance party will spend four-and-a-half years in jail.
NSW
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A YOUNG driver who killed his three friends when he fell asleep at the wheel after a drug-fuelled weekend dance party will spend four-and-a-half years in jail with the Judge saying a “message must get out to young people.”
Jordan Brown, 21, of Freshwater, had only a few hours of sleep in three days and was succumbing to the sedative after effects of ecstasy when he feels asleep on a winding stretch of road in the Blue Mountains and crashed killing his three friends and injuring another motorist.
Brown did not look at his family, who were sitting less than a metre away, when he was sentenced to six years and six months with four-and-a-half years non-parole by Judge Jeffery McLennan who said it was, “Yet another tragic case of an otherwise fine you man failing to act responsibly.”
“The message must get out to other young people that driving after the consumption of drugs and that leads to the deaths of others...will lead to a custodial sentence no matter who they are or what their background is.”
Brown pleaded guilty to three counts of driving under the influence occasioning the deaths of his mates, Ben Sawyer, 19, Luke Shanahan, 21, and Lachlan Burleigh, 17, at Bilpin, in the Blue Mountains, on August 30, 2015.
He also pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to 84-year-old driver Barbara McLaren whose car crashed into the four-wheel-drive driven by Brown as it slid sideways down the Bells Line of Road towards her oncoming vehicle.
Ms McLaren received a broken ankle in the crash but later suffered a stroke in hospital and remains bed-ridden.
Outside of court the mothers of Luke and Ben, Leanne Shanahan and Georgina Sawyer said the sentence was inadequate as it amounted to a little over a year for each dead son.
“Those three boys got in the car and were just driven to their death,” Ms Sawyer said
Brown and his friends Luke and another man, Daniel Richards, had spent the weekend at a dance party called Psyfari on a rural property at Glen Alice, 80 km north of Lithgow.
Brown, who had a Provisional driver’s licence, was driving home to the Northern Beaches in his mother’s four-wheel-drive with Daniel in the front and Luke, Ben and Lachlan asleep in the back when he failed to negotiate a sweeping right-hand bend.
Brown overcorrected causing the vehicle to slide sideways across two lanes before crashing into Ms McLaren’s vehicle which was heading in the opposite direction.
Luke, Ben and Lachlan all died at the scene.
The court heard Brown arrived at the dance party on the Friday afternoon and did not go to sleep until 7am Saturday morning. He said then slept for a couple of hours in his car and then stayed up to midnight before again sleeping in his car and driving his friends home at 12.30pm on Sunday.
Later medical tests revealed that Brown had such a high level of MDMA (Ecstasy) in his system that it was concluded he must have taken the substance in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Brown, however, claimed he only took ecstasy on the Friday night. Judge McLennan dismissed Brown’s claims and accepted the medical findings saying he would have been, “substantially sleep-deprived” and his “pre-existing fatigue could only have been compounded by the withdrawal of MDMA.”
“It leads to the conclusion that the offenders moral culpability is high,” Judge McLennan said.
He will be eligible for parole on October 9 2021.
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