The judge sentencing the teenage driver who crashed his ute in North Lake last year, killing passenger Nick Campo, wants to know if the other youths in the car were encouraging him to speed to make it to a nightclub before lock-out.
The judge also wants to find out whether the group snorted lines of cocaine with the driver before accepting his offer of a lift in July last year.
Nick Campo died on his 18th birthday.
The P-plate driver, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has admitted to being high and speeding while taking a carload of teens from Campo’s 18th birthday party in North Coogee to a nightclub in Leederville.
The teen was due to be sentenced in Perth Children’s Court on Monday, but Judge Hylton Quail said in determining the driver’s culpability, he first needed to know whether the group had taken cocaine together before agreeing to accept a lift.
Quail also said it was important to have clarity over whether the teens in the car were encouraging the offender to speed to get to Daisy’s late night bar by 12pm – which they wrongly believed was the lock-out time.
A map brought up during the drive estimated the time of arrival at the nightclub to be 12.06am and then 12.10am after stopping for fuel.
The driver was clocked reaching speeds of 133km/h in a 70km/h zone and running a red light before rolling and crashing his Toyota Hilux.
He took the stand on Monday afternoon to recall how he took cocaine for the first time in his life that evening after being offered the drug by Campo and two others when he went to Campo’s bedroom to wish him a happy birthday, and give him a birthday shot.
He then offered Campo a lift about an hour later after seeing him on the street trying to arrange Ubers for everyone.
“I asked Nick, ‘Do you need help?’, because I could see he was rushing, asking people if they could get in other people’s Ubers,” he said.
Campo then asked if his two other friends could also get a lift, to which the offender agreed.
“Throughout the night, everyone was under the assumption that Daisy’s entry closed at 12pm. We had in our heads already that it was too late [to make it there on time],” he said.
“[The passengers in the car] were singing along to the music that was playing, they were in a way encouraging me to beat the ETA.
“[They were talking about] how they speed occasionally, how we can go faster on the straight bits to cut some time.”
The other teens in the car have little to no memory of the night due to the crash, but Campo’s two friends could not recall bringing cocaine to the party, nor taking cocaine with the offender.
One claims he remembers telling the driver to slow down.
Blood tests showed the driver, Campo and one of his friends had cocaine in their systems. The other two passengers were not tested.
A search of the teens injured in the crash failed to uncover a bag of cocaine, despite the driver claiming he saw some of them snorting cocaine off a phone during the car trip and saying to “save some for later”.
The driver was described as a “friend of a friend” or an acquaintance of Campo’s, and was a last-minute invite to his birthday party.
An aspiring mechanic, the private school year 12 student had modified his Toyota Hilux which meant three of the seatbelts couldn’t be accessed, the airbag sensors had been deactivated, the front passenger seat was facing the rear, and the stabiliser had been removed.
While in the witness box, he said he was not allowed to have passengers in the rear of the car.
The court was told the driver was extremely remorseful about the crash, and had voluntarily surrendered his bail in December.
Defence lawyer Michael Tudori said the teenager – who became tearful in the dock at times – had been assaulted twice in Banksia Hill Detention Centre.
Prior to his offending, he was diagnosed with ADHD at 12, and began socially drinking alcohol at around 15, and smoking cannabis at 17.
He has pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter, three counts of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm, and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
Monday’s sentencing hearing was moved to the Perth District Court to accommodate a large contingent of the offender’s family, and the family of Campo and the other victims, all of whom have never had contact with the criminal justice system before the crash
The driver’s sentencing will resume on Tuesday.
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