An unlicensed driver charged with hitting and killing two children in NSW last year will spend at least nine years in jail after he was sentenced in Dubbo District Court.
Readers are advised this article includes images of Indigenous people who have died.
Jacob Donn, 27, in May pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Sheldon and Shane Shorey.
The brothers, aged six and seven, died after a vehicle Donn was driving hit them and three others while walking along a Wellington footpath in the state's central west in January 2021.
They were visiting their mother, Shayleen Frail, who was also injured in the incident.
Donn fled the scene before police arrived and was later arrested and charged.
Paramedics treated Ms Frail and her sons at the scene but Sheldon and Shane could not be saved.
Documents tendered in court showed Donn was doing fishtails — allowing the rear wheels to lose traction so the vehicle oversteers — before the crash and had methamphetamine, cannabis and heroin in his system.
Police said his driving ability was substantially impaired by the combined influence of those substances.
Donn was sentenced to 13 years jail, backdated to January 2021, with a non-parole period of nine years.
Victims' father speaks out
Forty of the victims' family members and friends were in court for the sentencing.
Some shouted and cried after hearing Donn would be eligible for parole in January 2030.
The boys' father, Joseph Shorey, said nine years for "killing two boys" was not enough and Donn should be serving 25 years.
"It should all be added up, all these charges," he said.
"He never had a licence. He drove erratically … how can you kill, drive through to kill, two little boys?"
He said "Australian law's got to change".
"I don't know who to see, politicians or whoever … but I'm going to find out," Mr Shorey said.
'Not of good character'
Judge Craig Smith said that Donn had displayed a "complete abandonment of his responsibilities" in causing the death of the two brothers.
He acknowledged Donn's "background of profound disadvantage" after being exposed to domestic violence, removed from his parents care and "using alcohol at 10, cannabis at 12, amphetamine at 14".
"His own mother introduced him to heroin when he was 16," Judge Smith said.
But he added that Donn was "not of good character".
"I don't accept he has good prospects of rehabilitation," Judge Smith said.
'You took off like a coward'
Donn appeared via audiovisual link from Bathurst Correctional Centre and sobbed while victim impact statements were read earlier.
Ms Frail described herself as the "proud mother of two angel boys", which had been planned and yearned for and were her greatest and proudest achievement.
She says it "destroys my soul everyday that I'll never be called mum again".
"My life has fallen apart," Ms Frail said.
"I feel I have no purpose, no passion. I constantly feel like I'm losing them over and over again with fresh waves of grief.
"No parent should ever have to bury a child. I had to bury two.
"It hits you again and again. There is no end to the loss."
Ms Frail said could not stop thinking of every detail.
"I begged Jacob to help while I was pinned against that wall [by the car]," she told the court.
"You just left. You just took off like a coward."
Boys 'loved by all'
Mr Shorey said the boys' surviving brother, Mark, did not go outside and play for nine months after the incident and cried every day.
"We have two shrines at home for them. We say good morning and good night to them," he said.
"They had their dreams, full of happiness, cheeky smiles and energy, loved by all."
Catherine McLeod, the mother of the boys' family friend, Mattaya Ah-See, gave a statement about the impact on their son, who was 11 when injured so severely in the crash that his leg was amputated.
"He never leaves his room. He's just filled with … hate," Ms McLeod said.
"He has bad dreams about the accident. I watch him tossing and turning, screaming and crying in his sleep.
"A week after the accident he said he missed the boys and wishes he was with them."
