Drug driver Jahdon Tamati learns fate over ‘brutal’ police chase

A drug driver who flung a policeman from his stolen getaway car “like a man on a trapeze” has learnt his fate over the horror incident.

A drug driver captured in “brief and brutal” footage as he flung a policeman from his stolen getaway car “like a man on the trapeze” has been jailed for four and a half years.

Jahdon Tamati, 32, will be eligible for parole by November next year after he pleaded guilty to 11 offences, including assaulting an officer who flew through the air when he crashed a stolen Range Rover.

Tamati, riddled with Covid, was walking around South Yarra in breach of lockdown restrictions with his mate, who was just freed from jail, when patrolling officers pulled his friend up for not wearing a mask, on August 14, 2020.

Realising he had a warrant out for his arrest, Tamati sparked a police foot pursuit to the stolen car he then crashed in a bid to flee, causing Senior Constable Ben Ellison, who was gripping on to the door, to fly over the parked vehicles on impact.

Jahdon Tamati was arrested in South Yarra after crashing his stolen getaway car.

Senior Constable Laken Lanza told the court in a victim impact statement she believed her partner was “under the car and possibly dead” after he was thrown through the air.

She said when Tamati put the stolen car into reverse, her “heart dropped”.

“I began to panic and was thinking repeatedly in my head, “I’m about to get ran over, I’m about to get ran over, I’m about to get ran over”,” she said.

But “luck was on my side”.

“I really do not know how I came out of that unscathed”.

Sen Con Ellison said it wasn’t until he saw the footage of himself thrown from the car on the news that he realised how close he and his partner came to “sustaining life threatening injuries or worse.”

County Court judge Geoffrey Chettle said “the incident was brief and brutal”, and sentenced Tamati to four and a half years jail, with a minimum of three years and three months.

The sentence comes after Judge Chettle called for drug drivers to face the same consequences as drink drivers, stating: “Some time or other the government’s got to get around to changing that provision”.

“It just amazes me that you can go to jail for alcohol driving but not for being full of speed and meth,” His Honour told the court last week.

Two Police officers were injured in the dramatic pursuit.

Criminal lawyer George Balot said Victoria had some of the most rigorous drink driving penalties in Australia but the Road Safety Act “does not adopt the same hard line approach on drug drivers”.

He said the offence of failing an oral fluid test – or detecting traces of drugs in saliva – did not carry a jail term for first or subsequent offences.

That meant a drug driver could “be a recidivist and reoffend on numerous occasions (and) the court’s hands are tied because it cannot sentence an offender to prison for repeat drug driving offences”.

“It is most unusual that no matter how many times a driver fails an oral fluid test they cannot be imprisoned,” Mr Balot said.

The top lawyer confirmed that a drug driver could only be jailed after being caught for a second time for driving while impaired, or driving while being incapable of operating a motor vehicle.

Those crimes carried a maximum jail term of six months and 12 months respectively for second offences.

But Mr Balot said those charges were “very difficult to prove”.

Meanwhile, he said oral fluid tests only detected “traces of recent drug use” in saliva, including the active component in cannabis, methamphetamines and ecstasy.

Following Judge Chettle’s commentary around the “anomalous” nature of the drink driving and drug driving penalties in Victoria, Tamati’s case created conversation around whether the Road Safety Act 1958 needed to be amended.

Meanwhile, Judge Chettle confirmed that had Tamati not pleaded guilty, he would have been sentenced to six years and six months jail, with a minimum of four years and six months.