Boy sentenced to 7yrs
Driver of car involved in Bradley Smith’s death
A DYSFUNCTIONAL upbringing marred by foetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD) leading to catastrophic road smash came to its tragic conclusion in Cairns Supreme Court on Friday.
A boy of 15 was sentenced to seven years detention by Justice Helen Bowskill, and will have to serve a minimum of 70 per cent of that sentence, amounting to four years, 11 months, whereafter he will be on probation for the remainder.
In Justice Bowskill’s lengthy sentencing remarks, she reiterated the boy’s dysfunctional upbringing, when his mother had drunk alcohol heavily for the first four months of her pregnancy. Growing up he was subject to his mother’s chronic substance abuse, exposed to domestic violence and said he was “hit by adults all the time”.
The resultant disorders he suffered from included PTSD, FASD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, general anxiety disorder, and depression, and he was at a high risk of suicide, Justice Bowskill said.
She characterised him as having “pervasive brain dysfunction”, that he had great difficulty seeing more than five minutes ahead, and people with that kind of disorder “simply live in an eternal present”.
On the night of February 13, 2021, the boy and Bradley Smith stole a Toyota Yaris and went driving with a carload of friends, none of whom wore seatbelts, Justice Bowskill said.
Methamphetamine and THC were found in the boy’s system later. It was a wet night in Cairns, and he livestreamed the drive on his Instagram page. Police watched on and dispatched a vehicle to follow. Earlier in the proceedings all the footage was shown in court, and a fight broke out in the public gallery.
Police reached speeds of 130kph and still could not catch up to him, the court heard. Half an hour in to the drive at Pease Street near the Saltwater Creek bridge, the boy drove through a red light, tried to overtake another vehicle, lost control of the car and crashed into a tree.
Bradley Smith was killed instantly, a 12 year-old girl in the car suffered injuries that resulted her in becoming quadriplegic, and two other children in the car suffered serious injuries requiring hospitalisation.
“The community is frightened about what you will do next,” Justice Bowskill told the boy.
People sobbed in the public gallery as Justice Bowskill spoke about the boy’s history and the events of the night.
“That they were in that car at all was a failure of our society, our community and a consequence of their family circumstances,” Justice Bowskill said.
She found the only appropriate sentence was an order for detention, but she rejected the Crown prosecution’s earlier submission that the boy had little rehabilitative prospects.