A 24-year-old hit-and-run driver who injured two pedestrians, one of them fatally, sped away and then bragged about it to his friends, has been spared jail time in Darwin. In a series of text messages aired in the NT Supreme Court, Jake Danby described his victims as "oxygen thieves" and "dogs” in the hours after the incident. And a warning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers, this story contains the name of an Aboriginal man who has died.
00:00Hit and run driver Jake Danby walks from the NT Supreme Court, convicted over a crash which left one man dead and another injured.
00:11Do you feel remorse for what happened?
00:13Yes.
00:14Outside the Hibiscus shopping centre on June 13, 2024, two Aboriginal men stepped out onto the road.
00:22Danby was speeding in a 60 zone and hit the men.
00:26One of them, Mr Whitehurst, flew seven metres and received a traumatic brain injury from which he later died in hospital.
00:34It was an accident and I'm extremely sorry.
00:37Never meant to hurt anyone.
00:39People make mistakes.
00:41In the hours after the crash, the court heard Danby sent a series of callous text messages to his friends.
00:48One read,
00:49In sentencing Danby, Judge Sonia Brownhill said the text messages demonstrated a shockingly callous disregard for the welfare of the victims.
01:10The degree of callousness and disdain expressed in those text messages for two other human beings, who you have obviously harmed most likely seriously, is difficult to fathom.
01:22The judge ultimately accepted that Danby had shown remorse after the incident and took his young age, lack of criminal history and strong employment record into account in sentencing him to a 12 month community corrections order with a five month period to be served in home detention.
01:41A young man avoids prison walls as another family is left grieving from his actions.
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