by Cam Lucadou-Wells
A speeding hit-run driver who T-boned a turning delivery van and left the occupant fighting for life in Cranbourne has been jailed.
Zachary Holmes, 21, of Cranbourne West, swore in the dock after he was jailed for up to three years in the Victorian County Court on 4 December.
The P-plater and his partner were travelling north about 130 km/h in side-by-side cars on a wet South Gippsland Highway in the early afternoon of 24 August 2022.
The 66-year-old delivery driver was turning right off the highway into Clairmont Avenue when struck to the side by Holmes’s Ford Falcon.
Holmes emergency braked, slowing to about 105 km/h in the 80km/h speed zone but skidding across the wet tarmac.
After impact, the delivery van tumbled 30 metres, coming to rest outside a Covid vaccine clinic. Its driver suffered life-threatening injuries, including spinal fractures.
As by-standers pulled him from the wreckage, his face was turning blue and petrol wafted from the van.
Holmes ran from his crumpled car, jumped into his partner’s vehicle and they fled the scene. He turned himself into Cranbourne police station about eight hours later.
The victim spent the next five weeks in ICU at The Alfred hospital.
He endures ongoing treatment for his injuries. He can’t work again nor provide or care for his disabled wife. Nor can he walk far, bend much, carry heavy weights and play golf.
His ability to enjoy retirement was seriously curtailed, Judge Andrew Palmer noted.
In sentencing, Palmer rejected a defence lawyer’s arguments that the delivery van driver was partly to blame for the crash.
Rather it was Holmes’s excessive speed that was the main factor.
Holmes pleaded guilty at an early stage to dangerous driving causing serious injury and to failing to render assistance.
The judge took into account Holmes’s “difficult” upbringing. His parents both abused ice and alcohol.
Holmes also had a long drug history, including ice, and a criminal record. But had shown promising signs at work during his bail.
He was convicted and jailed for three years, including a two-year non-parole period.
He was disqualified from driving for the mandatory four years.
