By Erin Pearson
In two children’s bedrooms in regional Victoria, memories are frozen in time.
Unwrapped Christmas presents and unworn newborn clothing lie untouched behind closed doors in two family homes inhabited by grief.
Savannah Kemp died in a car driven by her aunt.
They’re painful reminders, a court heard, of the deaths of five-year-old Savannah and 34-week-old unborn boy, Remi, in a car crash at Shepparton East on October 20 last year.
“Savannah died in horrendous circumstances, I’m tormented by what she endured,” her mother, Bryana Kemp, wrote in a victim impact statement.
“I go through the terrible sequence of events. The fear Savannah must’ve felt. I wonder when she realised she was in danger? If she called out for me?
“Savannah wanted to get married and have children. She used to tell me she couldn’t wait to get married in a white wedding dress.
Elodie and Andrew Aldridge lost their unborn boy, Remi.Credit: Justin McManus
“Instead, she was cremated in one.”
On Wednesday, 27-year-old killer driver Chrystle Olivia Kemp, Savannah’s aunt and a registered nurse, pleaded guilty in the County Court at Shepparton to dangerous driving causing death, and dangerous driving causing serious injury.
There, Savannah and Remi’s parents – strangers before the crash – laid bare their grief after Kemp, travelling along Old Dookie Road with her five-year-old niece in the back seat of a Toyota Landcruiser wearing only a lap strap, missed a stop sign and ploughed into the car of pregnant woman Elodie Aldridge.
The court heard Kemp had collected Savannah from kindergarten to go take photographs in a nearby canola field.
Seated in the middle back seat, without a booster, they drove along a 100km/h stretch of Old Dookie Road until Kemp, who doesn’t recall the incident, failed to stop, only applying the brakes 3.5 seconds before impact at the intersection of Boundary Road.
The force of the crash trapped expectant mother Aldridge in her black Ford Territory for more than an hour before she was flown to hospital with life-threatening injuries. Remi was delivered stillborn and his mother placed in a coma.
Aldridge attended court on crutches with the help of her husband to tell the court of her ongoing physical and psychological pain and the surgeries she still faces.
She said that even a year later, her family had been unable to go into Remi’s room.
“It has been a year and I still cannot see a parent with a child without feeling my heart break. Everything is a reminder of what happened and what I have lost,” Aldridge said.
“Between the pain in my leg and the nightmares, I fear the night.
“[Remi] we love you, and we will fight for you, so that you did not die in vain. Shine bright, little star.”
Andrew Aldridge recalled being at work when he received a call to say his wife, who was on the way home from a maternity appointment where they’d learnt she was carrying a healthy baby boy, had been involved in a crash.
He said he remained haunted by the scene he came across.
“I’ll never forget the screams. It was like walking into a war zone,” he said.
“I saw the bruises on her belly. I knew Remi was gone.
“No parent should have to hold their dead son, no parent should have to bury their child.”
The court heard the crash had torn the Kemp family apart, with Chrystle’s parents supporting her in court while her sister, Savannah’s mother, sat separately, sobbing, with her partner and friends.
Defence barrister Paul Smallwood said his client had long-term injuries from the crash. She appeared in court on crutches and needed frequent breaks.
The court heard there was no evidence Kemp had been using her mobile phone or speeding at the time of the crash, with visibility on the road partially obstructed by tall grass and trees. But warning signs were in place 180 metres before stop signs at the intersection.
Judge Geoffrey Chettle addressed the emotion of the court hearing, referencing the Auburn South Primary School crash last week that killed 11-year-old Jack Davey.
“It’s just horrific. No matter how many times I say it, I find myself sitting there reading victim impact statements in tears because it never ceases to be stark and brutal,” the judge said.
“It’s been a horrible week for these things. The Hawthorn school crash. A natural reaction is wanting retribution.
“But that’s not the law. And I’ve got to come to grips with that.”
Kemp will be sentenced at a later date.
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