West Gosford: VW Golf street racers Joshua Ryan, 26, and Fabian Pandzic, 21, facing home detention over horror smash
Two young street racing hoons, who sparked a crash that left an elderly man fighting for life just before Christmas, are unlikely to ever see the inside of a prison cell, a court has heard.
Central Coast
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Two young men, who were “clearly showing off” when they took off from a set of lights at twice the speed and nearly killed an elderly driver, are unlikely to be jailed.
Joshua Jack Ryan, 26, of Point Clare, and Fabian Pandzic, 21, of Canada Bay in Sydney’s Inner West, were due to be sentenced in Gosford District Court on Friday.
However District Court Judge David Wilson said he had a pressing trial to finish, as well as another sentence, and would not be able to deliver his remarks.
He told the court their sentence assessment reports had come back and found both offenders would be suitable for home detention.
Judge Wilson said “subject to submissions from the parties” he intended to sentence them to intensive correction orders (ICO).
An ICO is considered by the court as the equivalent of a jail sentence but served in the community with certain conditions imposed on an offender’s liberty.
It comes a little over two years after the pair pulled up alongside each other on the Central Coast Highway at the intersection of Racecourse Rd on December 10, 2022.
Witnesses in cars behind said they saw the pair, who were both driving black Volkswagen Golf GTI’s, talking through their windows shortly before 11am.
Both men had their girlfriends seated beside them — oblivious to what was about to transpire — as the young drivers fawned over the look and sound of each other’s modified cars.
Pandzic told officers when the lights changed he took off at the signposted 70km/h but Ryan had just gone “flying past me”.
“The light’s gone green, like, I’ve just gone and then he’s, like, gunned it,” Pandzic told police in his recorded interview.
Police reviewed CCTV footage from nearby businesses, along with another motorist’s dashcam, while “pre-impact data” from the airbag module of Ryan’s car found he was travelling between 142-149km/h.
Meanwhile an elderly man was trying to turn right, across the path of the two speeding cars, into Hely St.
“Pandzic’s vehicle narrowly avoided a collision, however Ryan’s vehicle collided with the passenger’s side of the victim’s vehicle,” an agreed set of facts state.
“The collision caused the victim’s vehicle to spin, flip and roll. The vehicle impacted with a timber telegraph pole, colliding with a bus shelter near a 7-Eleven service station where the vehicle became lodged.”
The 85-year-old driver was trapped in the wreckage before being flown to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition.
He spent two months in hospital and at one point his family didn’t know if he was going to survive until Christmas.
Ryan’s girlfriend was flown to Royal North Shore where she was treated for a broken collar bone and a hairline fracture to one of her vertebrae.
Ryan, Pandzic and his girlfriend were uninjured. Neither of the men’s girlfriends were accused of any wrongdoing.
The young drivers eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm at more than 45km/h over the limit, and causing harm by misconduct while in charge of a motor vehicle.
The court heard the pair were “clearly showing off” when they took off from the lights.
Judge Wilson will sentence the men on February 28 in Sydney.