Oatlands crash: Magistrate slams drunk drivers in wake of tragedy
In the wake of the Oatlands tragedy, a Sydney magistrate — who deals with up to 30 drunk drivers each day — has told reckless motorists they could have been responsible for the ordeal.
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A Sydney magistrate has slammed drunk drivers on their “avoidable crimes” in the wake of the Oatlands tragedy that claimed four children’s lives on February 1.
At Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday, the court heard one man was so intoxicated he grabbed insect repellant from a police officer so he could spray it in his mouth to mask the smell of alcohol on his breath.
Magistrate Robyn Denes said any drunk driver fronting court could have been responsible for a similar tragedy as the one that killed Antony, Angelina and Sienna Abdallah and their cousin Veronique Sakr at Oatlands.
Samuel Davidson faces multiple charges including drink driving after allegedly ploughing into the children at Bettington Rd.
Last week, when sentencing Stephen Andrew Chantler with speeding and drink driving offences, Ms Denes told the 49-year-old Narellan Vale man:
“I accept you have a problem with alcohol. This isn’t about people drinking. This is about your decision to drive. The line between what happened to that family and this accused (Chantler) is not very big.’’
Chantler was charged with driving 19km over the speed limit at Welling Drive, Narellan Vale, on November 17 at just 11am.
After the fifth attempt of a random breath test, he returned a positive reading of .205 — four times over the legal limit.
The court heard the 49-year-old was so drunk he reached into a police officer’s kit and removed Aeroguard and trying to spray it in his mouth.
He also drunk water in the belief it would disguise his alcohol level.
Before fining him $1000 for his high range drink driving, $250 for speeding and disqualifying his licence for nine months, Magistrate Denes told Chantler driving while drunk was like walking with a loaded firearm in his pocket.
“Cars are weapons,’’ she said.
“They might be comfortable. They have all the comforts of home … but they’re not.
“They’re lethal weapons with four bits of rubber and if you’re so intoxicated you’re trying to put fly spray in your mouth then, effectively, you’re driving around with a loaded firearm.”
Ms Denes told the court the NSW road toll had climbed to 29 in the hour she started court today.
“The road toll already this year is 29. It’s gone up by one over the past hour. From 9 o’clock to 10 o’clock someone just died. Twenty-nine people and it’s the the 4th of February. That’s pretty much one a day.
“Twenty-nine people aren’t going home and it’s not because the roads are less safe. That’s purely driver behaviour.’’
She said 10,500 people last year were seriously injured at the hands of drunk drivers.
“This is easily avoidable,’’she said.
“This isn’t a one-off. From a court’s perspective, probably every day we deal with 20-30 of you.”
While dealing with another matter, Ms Denes told Merrylands man David John Nimmo he was lucky his actions did not end up killing anyone after he sped through the Great Western Highway at Girraween on December 20 and returned a blood-alcohol level of 0.109.
“There’s not a lot between what happened to those children (at Oatlands) and your actions,’’ he said.
“If you hadn’t been pulled up by the random breath test … who knows.”
The court heard the man had just finished work at Eastern Creek and drank two pints of beer at his local pub before initially failing to stop for the police.
Ms Denes fined him $850, disqualified his licence for five months and ordered him to participate in a traffic offenders’ program.
Like Chantler, he will be forced to drive with an interlock system that prevents drivers from getting behind the wheel when it senses alcohol on their breath.
Ms Denes said there was a discord between the public and the courts over how drunk drivers should be dealt with.
“There’s’s community outrage and the courts feel pressure of what we’re supposed to do with these people,’’ she said.
But she said once they were charged “everyone’s walking through the doors saying ‘that’s not me, that was somebody else’ and expect leniency”.