Motorcyclist jailed after crash

By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS

A DISQUALIFIED motorcyclist who failed to heed a give way sign and collided with a car in Springvale has been jailed for one month.
Osman Dogru pleaded guilty to charges including careless driving at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 8 February from a video link in Port Phillip Prison.
He is serving a 31-month jail sentence for assaulting, falsely imprisoning and threatening to kill a former girlfriend as well as drug trafficking.
The court heard that Dogru had taken a friend’s motorcycle – with his girlfriend as a pillion passenger – for a quick trip for cigarettes on 6 February 2014.
Dogru, whose licence had been disqualified for two years at the time, rode west on Whitworth Avenue and failed to give way to a car turning right from Lewis Street.
Despite an emergency braking manoeuvre, Dogru struck the front right corner of the car and he and his passenger were thrown from the bike.
The passenger, screaming with pain from her injuries, was aided by witnesses and later hospitalised.
Dogru ignored a request to “wait for the cops” and rode from the scene without exchanging details with the driver or calling for an ambulance.
The motorbike’s owner picked up Dogru, who was bleeding and with two broken fingers. The accused self-administered bleach and methylated spirits on his wounds.
Dogru was also charged with a further riding a motorbike while disqualified and without a helmet in Heatherton Road, Springvale on 21 January 2014.
He told the court he had “flipped out” because of a combination of anxiety, depression and drug abuse but had since “learnt a lot”.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen noted the size of Dogru’s current jail sentence handed down by the County Court.
“You would never give anybody more than that (for those offences).”
He jailed Dogru for a month, to be served concurrently with his prison term.
The accused was also fined $1000, which can also be converted and ‘paid’ through his existing jail time.
Dogru is due for release from jail on 27 July.