Erle Cramer sentenced for Fan Wang’s car crash death

A Sydney realtor who killed his partner in a car crash when he was never meant to be driving due to being affected by repeated seizures has avoided jail.

Erle Cramer after his sentence hearing in October 2023.

A Sydney realtor who killed his partner in a car crash after months of seizures had already acknowledged major potential risks in an ominous text after an earlier crash, a court heard.

Erle Cramer, 66, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death after his de facto partner Fan Wang, 46, died in a crash in Sans Souci on April 2, 2021.

He will not serve any time in full-time custody after a judge found the community was best served by him remaining out of prison with ongoing psychiatric support.

Agreed facts state Cramer was driving the pair home from dinner with his parents just before 9pm when the car careened out of control and hit a telegraph pole, causing “unsurvivable” internal injuries to Ms Wang.

Cramer was said to have either suffered a seizure or fallen into a microsleep before the fatal crash.

The court heard Cramer had suffered a recurrence of complex partial seizures which he had first suffered in his youth.

He had not been seizure-free for the six months recommended by his doctor – and not the 12 months mandated by the Roads and Maritime Service – before he continued to drive.

Cramer had been directly confronted with the risks when he was involved in a separate crash less than 18 months prior to the fatal incident.

“Fan’s car is a total write-off, the other car could be $18-20,000 in repairs,” Cramer wrote in a text to a friend about crashing into a parked car on December 14, 2019.

“Trying to be philosophical and say it could have been so much worse, even fatal to someone … big lesson for me as even though cleared by neuro to drive with medication, never ever drive when I’m tired or stressed.”

Erle Crame was sentenced at Sydney District Court.

At Sydney District Court, Judge Warwick Hunt said Cramer was also not candid when he renewed his driver’s license online in 2017, ticking no to questions about whether he suffered epilepsy, seizures, dizziness or any medical condition that would affect his ability to drive.

Despite Cramer’s awareness of his own risk factors, his doctor’s advice and RMS requirements, he continued to drive until the day Ms Wang lost her life.

Cramer’s counsel Ragni Mathur submitted to the court her client continued to drive because of his severe obsessive compulsive disorder, which caused such acute fear of contamination he was unable to use rideshares, taxis or public transport.

She also asked the court to find Cramer would have a significantly more difficult time in custody due to his anxiety about contamination.

Crown prosecutor Mark Hay pointed out Cramer had successfully used public transport since his partner’s death and asked the court to consider he was not so acutely affected by his condition he could not have stopped driving before Ms Wang died.

“It’s important not to lose sight that somebody has died here,” Mr Hay told Judge Hunt.

“The victim, because she has put herself into a motor vehicle with the offender, has lost her life – she doesn’t get to live her life, she is gone, the entire community has lost her.”

Central Court.

Judge Hunt said it was a difficult exercise, acknowledging no prison term could ever adequately account for a life lost.

“The accused told the court that although he understood he should not be driving, and he knew he was tired, in circumstances where Ms Wang did not like to drive at night he elected to drive because he was so consumed with concern about being contaminated that using a rideshare, taxi or public transport was outside the realm of possibility,” Judge Hunt said.

“I’m persuaded there is a nexus between his profound OCD and the avoidant aspects of it and his decision to drive that evening.”

Judge Hunt said he expected what might have been perceived as Cramer’s lack of regard for Ms Wang’s family after the incident was likely a cause of regret for him and prompted by his own guilt and grief over the crash.

Taking Cramer’s psychiatric and physical health, his good prospects of rehabilitation and low risk of reoffending into account, Judge Hunt sentenced him to one year, nine months and two weeks’ imprisonment.

The sentence will be served in the community as an intensive correction order with supervision and conditions to continue his psychiatric and psychological treatment.

He was further disqualified from driving for three years.

Judge Hunt acknowledged Ms Wang’s supporters may have wished to see Cramer “taken away”.

“I’ve taken my task as earnestly as I can and there are proper reasons for (the sentence),” Judge Hunt said.

“Ridiculous,” one of Ms Wang’s family friends muttered in the public gallery.

“Someone has died.”