Drug-driver Wayne Hunt who killed 11-year-old Daemarius Purcell-Appo sent back to jail

The appeal court found the 54-year-old ‘made a number of regrettable and deliberate decisions that put others at risk’, including getting behind the wheel while high on cannabis.

Wayne Peter Hunt pleaded guilty in February to one count of dangerous driving causing death. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A drug-driver who fatally struck an 11-year-old boy with his ute outside a Moulden supermarket has been sent back to jail after a court ruled three months’ time served would “shock the public conscience”.

Wayne Peter Hunt was sentenced to three years in prison, to be served via home detention after three months, after pleading guilty in the Supreme Court to dangerous driving causing the death of Daemarius Purcell-Appo in December 2022.

The court heard Hunt was high on cannabis and driving a Dodge Ram ute that had not been modified in line with his driver’s licence conditions when he accidentally drove it forward, pinning the boy to a wall.

In ordering Hunt to spend the nine months he would have spent on home detention behind bars last month, the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled he “had a high degree of moral culpability”.

Appeal Justices Michael Grant, John Burns and Trevor Riley found he “made a number of regrettable and deliberate decisions that put others at risk”.

They included consuming cannabis to a point that an expert found was equivalent to a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 to 0.1; choosing to get behind the while high; failing to modify the Ram; and reversing the vehicle without being in proper control.

Daemarius Purcell-Appo. Picture: Supplied by family

“Those deliberate and reckless decisions were then aggregated with the inattentive or misjudged actions of the respondent in selecting ‘drive’ and depressing the accelerator instead of the brake to cause the tragic death of a child,” the judgment reads.

“The suspension of the sentence after three months upon the respondent entering into a home detention order for a period of nine months was, in our opinion, manifestly inadequate in all the circumstances.

“Such a sentence was not proportionate to the seriousness of the offending and did not provide sufficient emphasis upon the need for punishment, denunciation and general deterrence, or take sufficient account of the fact and manner of the taking of the child’s life.”

The judges rejected a separate appeal ground that the sentencing judge erred in finding Hunt’s time in custody would be more onerous than for others.

Daemarius’ grandmother Darleen Appo told this masthead last month the original sentence left her feeling “like his life didn’t mean much at all”.