Students tell driver of crash impact
Man gets home detention and ban from driving after injuring group on footpath
Astudent hurt when a driver ploughed into a group of high school pupils shook hands with the young man yesterday before he was sentenced for dangerous driving.
Michael Abou Chaaya, 21, admitted six counts of dangerous driving causing injury in August last year after he injured the group of students at a bus stop outside Westlake Girls High School on Auckland’s North Shore at 8.20am on September 20, 2017.
He appeared in the North Shore District Court yesterday before Judge Pippa Sinclair for sentencing.
Six students were hurt in the incident. One suffered critical injuries and one was seriously injured. Three of those hospitalised were Westlake Girls High students and one was from nearby Westlake Boys High School.
Injuries included two broken femurs, a broken ankle, concussion and nerve damage.
One of the students spent a month in Starship children’s hospital and two months in a rehabilitation centre, where she had to learn to walk again.
Five of the injured students and their families were in court to hear the verdict of Abou Chaaya’s sentencing. Before court began, one of the victims shook hands with Abou Chaaya and wished him good luck.
Abou Chaaya was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention, 250 hours’ community work, ordered to pay $18,500 in reparations and was disqualified from driving for two years.
The summary of facts said Abou Chaaya lost control of his vehicle on a moderate left-hand bend after driving at least 87km/h in a 50km/h zone on Taharoto and Wairau Rds.
The car mounted the kerb and drove 20m along the footpath. One of the victims was carried on the car’s bonnet before being flung down a nearby embankment.
The first victim’s statement said she could not remember anything from that day 14 months earlier.
“However, when I look at me and my friends’ scars it reminds me of what happened on that horrible day.”
The victim said she spent five days in hospital after suffering a broken ankle and chipped shoulder blade.
“I felt like a dead person walking around . . . My family suffered a lot.”
The second victim chose to have her mother read out her statement.
“I just wished that you had slowed down,” she said.
She suffered a dislocated left arm, a broken pelvis and femur, as well as torn ACL joints and broken ligaments.
“Not being able to physically move was one of the hardest things I have been through,” she said.
“It was so frustrating and infuriating. At times I feel like giving up. I used to be happy and carefree — I don’t feel like that any more.”
The victim said being in hospital and facing rehabilitation was “the most loneliest time ever”, but she had learned to forgive Abou Chaaya.
Another victim said the incident “has taken a massive toll on my life”.
She described how the smell of burning rubber and freshly mown grass both haunt her as reminders of the crash. “I just want this to be over and done with . . . I don’t want to be living the moment over and over again,” she said.
The last two victims described how the crash had a huge mental impact on them and had severely affected their schoolwork.
“My mind is constantly on the tragic accident and what I could have done to help,” one said.
Crown prosecutor Farrukh Gul Qaisrani said it was consistent through all these impact statements that the victims had suffered not only physical effects, but emotional effects — “that could possibly be life-long”.
He also argued Abou Chaaya had been inconsistent in his testimony.
“The defendant gave different versions of what caused the accident. At one stage he said it was probably a bug, and then at another stage he said it was the brakes, and then it was a car trying to merge into his lane.”
Abou Chaaya’s lawyer, Geoffrey Anderson, said the accused and his family had taken the case very seriously and were utterly remorseful.
Anderson said Abou Chaaya travelled the road often and simply made some dangerous decisions on this day. “The genesis of the incident was speed and inattention.”
Anderson apologised to the victims on behalf of his client and said Abou Chaaya had been highly stressed by what happened.
Judge Sinclair said this was an “event born of nightmares”.
Any sentence imposed would do little to relieve any suffering for the victims, but it needed to deter Abou Chaaya and others from reoffending.
“Not only did you speed, you undertook several risky and dangerous manoeuvres. It was unsurprising you lost control — this was an accident waiting to happen.”
Judge Sinclair accepted Abou Chaaya’s remorse, saying he had learned a very difficult lesson.