A TEENAGER who was drunk, disqualified from driving and speeding away from police when he ran a red light at Edgeworth and caused a crash that critically injured mother-of-three Tamika Weaver will not serve any more time in juvenile detention, with a magistrate praising the 18-year-old for turning his life around.
The lights at the intersection of Main Road and Garth Street had been red for nearly five seconds in the early hours of September 26, 2020, when the then 17-year-old careered into a maxi-taxi, flipping the van onto its side and injuring seven people.
The teenager, who cannot be identified because he was a juvenile at the time, had a month before the crash been disqualified from driving for five years and would later that night record a blood alcohol reading of 0.069.
And, after leaving a service station and catching the eye of police in a patrol car heading in the opposite direction, the teenager was "accelerating away" at more than 100km/h when he hurtled through the red light and into the intersection before smashing into the maxi-taxi.
The teenager spent about 25 days in juvenile detention before he was granted Supreme Court bail in October, 2020, and since his release "has been on a path" to rehabilitation, gaining employment, moving away from Newcastle, staying out of trouble and connecting with his Indigenous roots, Broadmeadow Children's Court heard on Friday.
It was a difficult sentencing exercise with Magistrate Andrew Eckhold having to weigh the seriousness of the crash and the "life-long" injuries suffered by Ms Weaver against the teenager's "background of profound disadvantage" and the steps he had taken to turn his life around.
The Children's Court jurisdiction emphasises rehabilitation and Mr Eckhold said the teenager had achieved something rarely seen in people with similar disadvantaged upbringings.
"It took this dreadful accident and dreadful mistake for you to wake up," Mr Eckhold said. "Morally you owe a debt to society to continue what you are doing."
He sentenced the teenager to a 17-month suspended control order, the equivalent of a suspended jail term, with supervision and disqualified him from driving for 12 months.
It was about 1.13am on September 26 last year and the teenager was driving a Holden Statesman packed with other teenagers through Edgeworth when he was spotted by patrolling police.
As police did a u-turn, intending to pull over the car, the teenager sped away and was travelling at about 103km/h as the car approached the red light on Garth Street.
The light had been red for about 4.76 seconds and the maxi-taxi carrying six passengers had began turning into Main Road when the teenager's car shot through the intersection and smashed into the driver's side.
Ms Weaver, who suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was thrown from the van, was not in court for the sentencing and ultimately chose not to write a victim impact statement.
