REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Saturday, February 19, 2011

THE distraught mother of onepunch victim Sam Ford has lashed out at Queensland’s sentencing laws after learning her son’s teenage attacker could be free on parole when he had served two years of a six-year jail sentence. As she pushed her permanently disabled son’s wheelchair from the Southport Courthouse, Margaret Ford cried in frustration, calling for stricter penalties for alcohol-fuelled violent offenders.

“We’re devastated, absolutely devastated. Our son has a life sentence,” Mrs Ford said. “Anna Bligh said not a week ago that Queensland has the strictest laws in this kind of crime and that just proves today (that it doesn’t). “It’s just so unfair – unfair for our son’s life, for our whole family, for our whole community.” A 19-year-old from Banora Point, pleaded guilty to punching Cabarita’s Sam Ford and assaulting his girlfriend Meghan Colivas during a drunken attack in a Coolangatta street in 2009. Both men, who were not related, were aged 18 at the time. Witnesses told police one heavy punch from Ford knocked Sam down, causing his head to “bounce” on the concrete path before he lay on Griffith St, unconscious and bleeding. Southport District Court judge John Newton said the fateful night had ruined the lives of two promising young men. “It seems a classic case where one punch has resulted in terrible and permanent injuries which must be visited by a term of imprisonment,” he said. Crown prosecutor Richard Pointing called for a head sentence of seven years to reflect the severity of Sam’s injuries.