Wayne Cranfield, Vicki Newton sentenced after dragging pregnant woman down Darwin street

A Darwin mother who watched her five-year-old son get snatched off the street and bundled into a car desperately tried to get him back. Here’s why her attackers have walked free.

Wayne Cranfield, 37, and his mother, Vicki Newton, 56, sentenced for recklessly endangering serious harm.

A South Australian man and his mother have walked free after dragging a heavily pregnant woman down the street with their car after ‘snatching’ her five-year-old son.

Wayne Cranfield and Vicki Newton were sentenced in the Supreme Court on Tuesday after both plead guilty to charges of recklessly endangering serious harm.

The charges arose from an incident on February 3, 2023.

The pair were initially charged with kidnapping offences but they were dropped last Friday.

On Tuesday, Justice Graham Hiley detailed the mother-and-son’s duo’s plot to take his five-year-old son back to South Australia.

Justice Hiley said Cranfield and the mother of his children broke up four years ago, and his two boys were in Darwin for the Christmas holidays.

But when the time came for the boys to return home, only one flew back to South Australia on January 30.

His mother said her five-year-old son said that he wanted to stay in Darwin.

Justice Hiley said there was some “acrimonious correspondence” between Cranfield and the woman.

Wayne Cranfield was sentenced in the Supreme Court after pleading guilty to recklessly endangering serious harm on February 3, 2023.

The boy’s grandmother, Newton, initially called SA child protection authorities, who said it was out of their jurisdiction, before contacting Territory Families.

After waiting four days, Cranfield and Newton had travelled 3100km from their home in Victoria Harbour to Darwin.

On February 3, they were skulking around his five-year-old’s school in Nakara when they spotted the son and his pregnant ex-partner.

Justice Hiley said Cranfield then rushed over to the boy “grabbing him in a bear hug” before carrying him to the car.

Cranfield attempted to slam the door shut, but the five-year-old’s mother was desperately reaching in to get her child back.

Grandmother Vicki Newton, 56.

“I jumped through the car trying to get my son,” she said in her victim impact statement.

“I hear ‘go, go, go’ … while all this was happening my son was yelling ‘mum’ to me the whole time.”

Newton continued to drive the car, dragging the 38-week pregnant woman down the street.

Cranfield then pushed the terrified woman off.

Justice Hiley said the pregnant woman was left bruised, scratched, grazed and traumatised, and the two children had night terrors.

“That must have been terrifying for them to watch and be involved in this violence involving their three closest family members, their parents and grandmother,” Justice Hiley said.

Cranfield and Newton, alongside his two children, returned to the Humpty Doo caravan park, and prepared for their drive down to South Australia.

They made it 50km down the road to Cox Peninsula Rd, Virginia, before police cornered them.

Justice Hiley acknowledged Cranfield and his mother had been the primary carers of the boys since they were infants and were motivated by a genuine concern for their children.

“As far as you are concerned, family comes first,” he said.

“I recognise that you are genuinely remorseful for what you did.”

But Justice Hiley said there needed to be denouncement of this “unusual” conduct “which can lead to tragic consequences even death”.

Both Cranfield and Newton were sentenced to two years in prison, which was fully suspended.

They were allowed to return to South Australia.