Woman avoids jail for reversing over toddler
A WOMAN who smoked “a cone” after she reversed over a two-year-old boy when she didn’t bother checking despite kids running unsupervised behind her car has avoided jail.
NSW
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A WOMAN who smoked “a cone” after she reversed over a two-year-old boy when she didn’t bother checking despite kids running unsupervised behind her car in the Hunter Region has avoided jail.
Jessica Clare Williams, 23, was instead placed on a community corrections order for three years, disqualified from driving for two years and fined $1000 for the horrific accident which left the little boy fighting for life in March.
The Woodberry woman tested positive for methylamphetamine in an initial screening test of a urine sample taken at hospital.
She told police that came from “passively ingesting” ice at a close friend’s house.
Williams said that a positive cannabis result was due to her smoking a “a cone” after leaving the scene to “calm herself down” as she suffers from social anxiety.
She also had benzodiazepine show up and told police this came from taking an unprescribed Valium the day before.
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Williams was picking up a child, who was playing with other kids at Segonhoe St in Woodberry, when she reversed over the boy on March 10, leaving the toddler on life support for 15 days.
CCTV shows that four kids ran behind Williams’ car at varying points but despite Williams initially telling police she saw all the kids playing on a metal slippery slide in the front yard she subsequently admitted she had “not accounted for all the children”.
She was aware the victim had been at the rear of the car and “admitted she did not see the victim walk away from her vehicle to the slippery slide as she had stated earlier,” police facts said.
“The accused made no attempt to move the children to a safer location prior to her reversing out.”
Williams told police she heard a “bump” and thought it was a change in surface and orientation of the driveway.
But she then heard children screaming and looked out her window to see the victim, now aged three, lying face down with half of his body under the vehicle.
She got out and saw tyre marks over his right shoulder and knew she had run over him.
She screamed for help and called an ambulance.
Williams pleaded guilty to negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and altering the amount of illicit drugs in her system.
The charges of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and not reversing a vehicle safely were withdrawn.
The boy’s aunty said that he was now doing “surprisingly amazing”.
“He is such a very lucky boy, she split his liver in half, he was very touch and go, bleeding internally and all she was worried about was drugs,” she said.
She said she was upset with the lenient sentence.
“He is scarred for life, he would be very upset if he could understand this outcome. What is going to happen if this happens to another family?”