This injustice is sickening. Even victims are surprised

The ridiculously harsh sentence given to a negligent bus driver is so inconsistent with soft sentences handed down to violent and dangerous criminals, writes Justin Smith. It is complete injustice.

Justin Smith

4 min read

February 7, 2019 - 4:13PM

News Corp Australia Network

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Last weekend, I went to jail. I was visiting Jack Aston, the Ballarat bus driver who hit the Montague St Bridge in 2016.

Just before Christmas, he was sentenced to five years. It was a punishment that was ridiculously harsh and inconsistent with the soft sentences we’ve been getting from Victorian courts.

The thought of the injustice has stayed with me through summer, so I wanted to see him.

The drive to the Loddon Middleton Prison in Castlemaine is a good one. After the Calder Freeway, the bush is beautiful and there’s a charming little weekend market just before the last turn-off.

But then you see the high fences and it’s a giveaway. It’s a prison. And it makes even innocent people feel a twinge in the gut.

The guards were kind and easy to deal with. I told them I was a columnist for the Herald Sun and that I’d written about Jack, but that I was an approved visitor, a friend of Jack’s family, and he was expecting me.

I’m not going write about what Jack and I said to each other during the visit, or what happened on the inside (although, the coffee is better than you’d expect).

Jack Aston (right) leaving a court hearing with his wife before he was sentenced last year. Picture: Hamish Blair

The media is not supposed to interview prisoners, because, as with most things to do with Victorians courts and prisons, it’s restricted and secret. So I didn’t interview him.

But it’s not hard to imagine. If you can picture a good country bloke dressed in prison greens, with the eyes of a person who must contemplate years sleeping in a locked cell, then you have it.

I wrote about Jack in December and talked about him on 3AW. The sentence he got was cruel when I compared it with what else we’d seen in the courts last year — including the former general manager of Guide Dogs Victoria who got no jail for stealing $200,000 from the charity so he could put in a pool at his home.

Or the two women who bashed a paramedic and walked free — despite the “mandatory” sentences for assaulting emergency services workers. And the meth-head with a history of assaulting police and trafficking who only got two years and 10 months for shooting someone at a child’s birthday party.

Weak sentencing has become normal to us. Watching violent criminals walking free from court is like hearing a tram ding on Bourke St — after you hear the first dozen, it fades into the background.

It’s why Jack’s sentence was such a shock. One talkback caller I spoke to suggested it could mean the courts were going to get tougher on all criminals. I admired the optimism, but thought “not bloody likely”.

And I was right. Since Jack’s case, a woman was convicted of stealing a five-year-old boy while she was high on ice. No jail.

I’ve spoken to some of the victims of the bus crash. They’re good people too, and the impact on their lives has been deep and painful, but they’re surprised by the harshness shown to Jack Aston.

The bus Jack Aston drove into a bridge on Montague Street was peeled back up to five rows. Picture: Hamish Blair

“It’s something that never leaves me, but I know it never leaves him either,” one told me. “He’s a victim too. It was an accident and I feel like he’s suffered enough. Five years is too harsh… being stuck in there with people who are truly evil.

“And when I was eating Christmas dinner, I was thinking about him (Jack) and wondering what kind of day he was having.”

And I’ve talked to people who have a good understanding of crime and justice — including lawyers and old coppers — and they struggle to understand how he got five years when there were no drugs involved, no booze, no deaths, no intent, no criminal history and he collided with an object that’s been hit so many times before that it’s become a joke.

They understand what happens when you put a “clean skin” with drug dealers and rapists. It can change them forever. And before Jack was moved to Castlemaine, he was locked in Port Phillip Prison. Maximum security. The same place we keep Julian Knight.

And some of the worst criminals in the state are serving their sentences concurrently — including jailed paedophile Gerald Ridsdale who was recently convicted of raping 12 more victims. Thanks to concurrent sentencing, he got only an extra three years. That’s three months per victim.

But Jack must serve each count cumulatively. One after the other.

I’ve spoken to Jack’s wife, Wendy, many times. It’s why I went to see him. She’s working to appeal against his sentence, but it’s a slow game.

She had told me that Jack keeps his beard long so he has something to hide behind and he worries his golden retriever, Flake, thinks that he’s dead. So Jack slept in his cell with a soft toy to cover it with his scent and now Flake sleeps with it at home.

After I left the prison, Wendy was the next visitor and I left them together holding hands. They’re just a couple of good people trying to get each other through a nightmare of loneliness and anxiety.

And then I drove home. I didn’t see the beauty in the bush on the way out, I just felt sick at the injustice.

Justin Smith is a Herald Sun columnist and 3AW presenter

@justinsmith3AW

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This injustice is sickening. Even victims are surprised

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