Ayse Laz: horror upbringing of Coolaroo drug-driving teen who killed DoorDash rider Khai Shien Chow

She’s a convicted killer. But her lawyer has brought up her traumatic youth to try and stop her from getting more jail time for other offending.

Ayse Laz was jailed for 11 years for hitting and killing a DoorDash rider.

A young woman who killed a DoorDash rider while high on drugs has had her tragic past brought up in court to save her from extra jail time.

Ayse Laz, 21, hit and killed Malaysian national Khai Shien Chow in Melbourne’s CBD on Grand Final Day 2020 — a crime for which she was sentenced to 11 years’ jail last year.

A court has heard that months before her deadly deed, she was released on bail for stealing a car and driving it at high speed through a Coolaroo intersection and assaulting the victim of car she then struck.

Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court heard that on January 15 2020 Laz stole a car in Preston, which three days later she admitted to driving on Pasco Vale Rd in Coolaroo.

With traffic banked up at a red light before her, police said she quickly changed lanes and ran a red light, before hitting a Range Rover and sending the stolen car spinning into a light pole.

Police told the court that when the victim tried to take photographs of Laz and the passenger the pair began to assault the victim, who consequently required hospitalisation at the Northern Hospital.

The court was told that Laz was bailed in February, after making full admissions to stealing the car and the collision.

On April 9, Laz was caught driving unlicensed again, this time on Reservoir’s High St, with a knife in her pocket and 30ml of GHB.

The court was told she made full admissions to the offending that day at Mill Park police station.

Britt Llewellyn, for the defence, told the court that her client had endured significant personal trauma prior to the offending, trauma that led to a meth addiction and a disregard of her own safety.

Ms Llewellyn said that in April 2019 Laz’s father lost his battle with cancer, an event which caused Laz’s mother to abscond and leave her daughter responsible for raising six other children, two of whom were infants.

She said that Laz lost the battle to remain with her siblings.

“She lost her father, her mother and her siblings,” Ms Llewellyn told the court.

She said that around the same period, Laz’s best friend committed suicide.

The combination of events led Laz, 19 at the time, to begin taking meth in what was a “very confused and tragic period,” Ms Llewellyn said,

“Her offending escalated and unfolded very quickly.”

Magistrate Mathew White said the offending was “certainly objectively very serious,” while conceding Laz had endured “very traumatic experiences”.

He sentenced Laz to a jail term of nine months, to be served concurrently with her existing term of imprisonment.