Nasifay Nigato fronts court over fatal collision

A cancer sufferer is grieving the loss of her 80-year-old mother and caregiver who died in a road collision caused by a disability support worker.

Disability support worker Nasifay Nigato has avoided jail for causing a collision that killed 80-year-old Annette Wyatt near Tylden.

A disability support worker who caused a collision that claimed the life of an 80-year-old woman has been spared jail, partly because her young son depends on her.

Nasifay Nigato, 35 of St Albans, was returning with another disability support worker and a client on June 25, 2023 when she sped around bend and collided with an oncoming vehicle on the Tylden-Woodend Rd intersection, near Tylden.

Inside the oncoming vehicle were Tricia Wyatt and her mother Annette.

Annette, who succumbed to her injuries five days after the collision, had been caring for a cancer-stricken Tricia at the time.

Tricia suffered a broken ankle that required surgery and fractures to her left shoulder, collar bone and three ribs. She spent 10 days in hospital and three weeks at a rehabilitation centre.

Nigato pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and was sentenced in the County Court on Thursday to a community corrections order for three years.

Annette Wyatt was killed in a road collision caused by disability support worker Nasifay Nigato near Tylden.

Judge Scott Johns said a combination of factors meant that exceptional circumstances existed where he could impose a non-custodial sentence.

They included the fact that the Ethiopia-born Nigato cared for her 15-year-old son who was in school, her fragile mental health, her isolation from English-speaking prisoners if was sent to jail, a lack of priors and likely deportation.

Judge Johns said the enormity of Ms Watt’s loss was eloquently described by her daughter in her victim impact statement to court. Both shared a close bond and her mother’s loss has turned her world upside down.

He said the community has had enough of drug-affected driving, speeding, risk-taking, failure to obey traffic signals and not driving to the road conditions.

Until the collision, he said Nigato’s driving record was unblemished.

“You approached this bend too fast for the conditions in all of the circumstances. It was a poor piece of driving in the conditions.”

A non-custodial sentence would also mean that Nigato would be able to access personalised psychological treatment.