Why would you possibly raise issues that supposedly lots of people feel about the Aboriginal community- be it accepting fault or not doing enough to support children - in response to a child being killed by someone not from that community? What is the intention behind those comments if not directing partial blame at those grieving?
And how are we now talking about Scorpio’s treatment instead of the child’s justice? I can answer that actually. It’s very common in here. Because she decided that we were attacking her instead of her words by claiming we couldn’t read.
What she wrote, and the idea in general that a 4x4 travelling at 67km down and dirt road directly toward a motorbike at 40kms, was simply a tragic accident that couldn’t be avoided is ridiculous
She knew she was born overseas in Canada - the first thing you’d ■■■■■■ do is look up whether being born in said country gives you automatic citizenship.
Fact: He got three years fior dangerous driving…He did not set out to chase the boy down but followed up on the cops suggestion where the bike might have been dumped, saw the kid on a bike and then chased him…
He should have gone there with the cops, should not have chased him and should not have chased him in the manner which he did. But legally, that is not manslaughter.
There are parallels with the 2004 Redfern riots, when the boy saw the cops, panicked and spiked himself on a fence. There is an underlying sense of injustice.
Re the defence, character assassination is the norm in any defence. It should not be allowed in any circumstances and it is up to the judge to direct the jury on the weighting that a jury should give. I don’t know what the judge said in that instance.
Rubbish, if you think the character & past of a white kid wouldn’t have been mentioned in court then you are a fool. Of course the defence is going to try to lay as much blame on the victim as possible - thats what a competent defence does. To suggest the childs past is only admissible because of his race is nonsense.
He didn’t just chase him. He got up too close behind him too fast and ran him down as he couldn’t and didn’t stop. Intention may not have been to kill him but his actions made it unavoidable.
Was it less avoidable and less of an accident than the monkey bike guy? He got seven years for killing that woman.
There may be differences of fact with the monkey bike incident, such as running through a pedestrian crossing on a bike with no front brakes and being unlicensed, failing to stop. He was convicted of culpable driving.
Leaving race out of it, I’d have thought manslaughter was ‘meant to hit/stab/push/ whatever, but not kill him. But he died because of that.’
And this is didn’t mean to it him. So…not.
It’s definitely where the case is. You say he didn’t mean to, and that was the finding, but we know he wanted to run him off the road into the bush so he’d fall off and we know he approached at a speed that would go straight over the kid. The jury decided he didn’t mean to. I think chasing a boy on a low powered bike in a vehicle that weighs over a ton at speeds too fast to avoid killing him is very close to easing a knife in and not meaning to hit the heart. The boy was not getting away unharmed.
Wim’s post explains why the culpable driving offence is distinguisable from manslaughter, even if the severity of sentence may be similar in some jurisdictions. It is why the joyriding offence was introduced to distinguish it from stealing. The laws are different between the States. It may come down to whether WA has a culpable driving law and if so whether the actions could be defined as culpable as compared to dangerous. None of that seems to have come out in the media reporting.
“I was hoping that he would take off into the bush and hopefully fall off there,” he said in his police interview played to the jury.
Chief Justice Martin sentenced him to three years’ jail for dangerous driving, and made him eligible for parole.
He said he accepted the collision happened as the man said it did, after Elijah turned unexpectedly into the path of the ute.
“Your culpability lies in driving a very large and heavy vehicle very close to a small motorbike at a speed, and on terrain which made it difficult to predict the course which the motorbike would take, and which also made it difficult if not impossible for you to either stop or change course so as to avoid a collision with the motorbike if the rider acted in a manner which was unexpected,” he said.
The first admission alone demonstrates his intent was to cause an accident which could have, in itself, been fatal. That was his intent. Deliberate action designed to cause harm.
I don’t care what state or charge or race. If you set out to deliberately cause harm and your intended victim dies, you deserve more than 3 years. You deserve more than having your house burned down.
The guy is a child killer and if it was my son on that bike I’d be doing a lot more than rioting. The community’s response is measured and reasonable.
Any Court I have been in, and there have been a few, any attempt at blaming the victim has been objected to by the Prosecutor and stopped by the judge.
Visit a Court in WA or Darwin, and see the differing justice based on colour.
I don’t think ‘I was hoping he’d fall off’ equals ‘My intent was to force him to fall off.’
And I’m just going to say this time that I have no idea what his intent was. And also that I’m not arguing that the pursuit was a reasonable thing to do. Or anything else at all other than that which I’ve said above.