Dad who drove like ‘maniac’ dodges jail
TEN months after he miraculously escaped unharmed from a high-speed car crash at Bannockburn, a “maniac” driver had a second stroke of luck yesterday when he avoided jail.
Jay William Walsh accelerated when police clocked him at 133km/h in an 80km/h zone on a country highway in his hometown last October.
He lost control of the car on Burnside Rd as he wove through traffic to evade police, and it careered into a roadside tree, flipped and skidded 130m before stopping just short of the busy Hamilton Highway intersection.
Unharmed, the man ran from the scene, and was arrested by police 200m away, where it emerged he was unlicensed, had committed a similar act before, and his car was unregistered.
In fact, police prosecutor Senior Constable Jacki Davis revealed to Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday the man had never had a Victorian driver’s licence.
Magistrate Ann McGarvie told the father of two he came perilously close to being locked up for his stupidity behind the wheel, opting to put the man on a year-long corrections order and demanding he do 120 hours of unpaid community work.
“What is going to stop this man getting in a car and driving like a maniac?,” she asked before Walsh was assessed for the CCO.
Defence lawyer Bill Sizeland conceded only the man’s closest family members would have felt any sympathy for him if he’d “come to the ultimate grief” that day, acknowledging his good fortune that no other drivers were injured or other cars damaged. A panel beater with literacy difficulties that prevented him getting a licence, Walsh crashed the car on October 18, the anniversary of his father’s death, Mr Sizeland said.
Ms McGarvie told Walsh he would’ve got “12 years straight up” in jail had he killed someone else, and noted he had a prior conviction “for almost identical driving”.
“You were incredibly lucky you didn’t kill yourself … but you were even luckier you didn’t kill someone else on the road that day,” she said.
The defendant pleaded guilty to charges, including counts of dangerous driving, speeding, evading police, driving without a licence and driving an unregistered vehicle.
Despite his prior offence, his history was “limited”, the court heard.
The court heard Walsh had two children, one born about six months before the crash, the other about six months after.
Ms McGarvie ordered he undertake a series of rehabilitation and safe driver programs on his CCO, and disqualified him from getting a licence for the next two years.