The mother of a 14-year-old boy who was struck and killed by a bus outside his school has remembered their final weekend together, a birthday celebration that haunted her to this day.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, recalled making her youngest son dance with her during the weekend's events.
"I can hear him, see him, almost touch him," she told Sydney's Campbelltown District Court on Tuesday.
In the teenager's final days, his mother told him he needed to be nicer to his teachers because he only needed one more merit award to get to the next level.
A revelation when she received his school diary the day after he died would stay with her forever.
"I will never forget the pain of opening it and seeing in the front sleeve a merit certificate for history," the mother said.
"He received it a few hours before being killed."
Eighteen months after the 14-year-old's death, she said she still goes into his room to look at the award.
The woman's victim impact statement was one of three shared by family members at a sentencing hearing for the bus driver, Penina Lopesi.
The now-56-year-old was arrested in February 2023 after the fatal accident near Macarthur Anglican School in Cobbitty, southwest of Sydney.
Lopesi later pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving occasioning death.
The brother of the dead teen was able to jump out of the way of the incoming bus as it mounted the kerb, witnessing his sibling's fatal injuries.
The teenager was taken to Liverpool Hospital before he was declared dead.
Video footage was played in court, showing students boarding the bus before it took off and appeared to narrowly miss a tree when mounting a kerb.
The bus then slowed to a halt and Lopesi could be seen looking around as students left the bus in a panic and a crowd gathered.
She then started violently shaking her head and body in the driver's seat.
The mother later arrived on the scene to find one son "all hunched over like he has a heavy backpack on his back" and the other breathing his last breaths.
"I can see he's dying the way his little eyes are staring at the sky," she told the court.
Lopesi spent one night in custody before being let out on bail under the condition she did not drive.
Along with the charge of dangerous driving occasioning death, she also faces a charge of failing to provide her particulars to police.
The dangerous driving charge carries a maximum 10-year prison term.
