No prison for French nurse in car fatality
A FAR Northern family is heartbroken over the loss of their “shining star” as the French nurse, who caused the fatal crash that killed a 17- yearold on the cusp of a modelling career, is left physically and emotionally scarred.
Cindy Gonin was shielded by supporters as she walked, with the aid of crutches, from the Cairns courthouse yesterday after Judge Michael Shanahan handed her a twoyear suspended jail term.
Dimbulah’s Elyse MillerKennedy spent seven days in Townsville Hospital following the high- impact crash at a bend on the Mareeba Dimbulah Rd on August 3 last year.
Mareeba shire councillor Edward Brown said there would be mixed emotions within the small Dimbulah community.
“Mixed as in glad that it’s over and then probably a little disappointed … regarding the sentence,” Cr Brown said.
“No sentence is going bring Elyse back.
“She was a shining star in a small community and everybody saw her as that. She had so much ahead of her.”
Gonin, then 23, and a friend had borrowed a car to look for work, driving from Cairns to the Tablelands. She had only been in Australia for three months with limited experience driving in the country.
She was driving towards Mareeba when the vehicle drifted on to the wrong side of the road, colliding head- on with the vehicle driven by Ms Miller- Kennedy.
Gonin suffered significant physical and psychological injuries from the crash. She had been diagnosed with PTSD, received ongoing morphine treatment, counselling and physiotherapy. to