STATE OF TASMANIA v AARON TASMAN BONNER 6 MAY 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Aaron Bonner, you plead guilty to one count of causing death by dangerous driving and one count of causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving. The plea of guilty to causing death by dangerous driving is accepted by the State in satisfaction of the more serious charge of manslaughter. The crimes were committed on 6 January 2020 when two pedestrians, Anthony Campbell and Bernice Campbell were struck by a car you were driving. I have been given a great deal of detail about the circumstances of the collision but they can be described relatively briefly.
At the time you were a police officer, a first class constable, but acting in the rank of sergeant. Just before 8.30 pm you were working alone in a marked police car, parked in a car park on the southern side of Paterson Street in central Launceston, between Charles and St John Streets. You received a radio call from another police unit. You were told that they were about to take a person to hospital for a mental health assessment and needed some help. It was not an urgent call. You drove out of the car park and turned right onto Paterson Street. The point at which you drove out of the car park is 115 metres west of the intersection with St John Street. At the intersection there are two east bound lanes and, from just before the intersection, a third lane for vehicles turning left. The road is flat and straight. As you drove towards the intersection you accelerated heavily and moved into the middle lane. The speed limit was 50 kilometres per hour. The intersection is controlled by traffic lights. They were operating correctly and were clearly visible. You faced a red light and the traffic coming through the intersection on St Johns Street from both directions had a green light. Despite the red light, which you had plenty of time to see, you continued to accelerate heavily and drove through the intersection. At the same time, a vehicle being driven by Matthew Shea, in which his partner and their two children were passengers, entered the intersection from the northern side. He was travelling south, that is, from your left, at about 40 kilometres per hour, well below the speed limit. By then your car was travelling at 89 kilometres per hour. Later analysis of your vehicle showed that for the five seconds prior to the collision you were effectively accelerating as hard as you could. Such was the speed and acceleration of your vehicle and its position on the roadway that Mr Shea had no opportunity to give way and no chance to avoid a collision. At some point you had activated your emergency lights and siren but it is not disputed that these gave little or no warning of your entry into the intersection. The front of Mr Shea’s car struck the centre passenger side of the police vehicle you were driving. The effect of the collision on your vehicle was to cause it to be lifted off the roadway. It rotated whilst airborne and then, after landing on the right side tyres, it rolled. The roof of the vehicle struck a parking metre structure on the footpath on the southern side of Paterson Street but your vehicle continued on its path until it eventually came to rest about 40 metres from the point of the original collision.
Mr and Mrs Campbell were standing on the footpath near the parking metre and were struck by your vehicle as it careered out of control. Both suffered catastrophic injury. Mr Campbell was thrown into the air for about 15 metres but was propelled more than 50 metres further down the road. Mrs Campbell came to rest near the parking metre.
Mr Campbell suffered numerous traumatic injuries to his head and body. He was rushed to hospital but died before he arrived. Mrs Campbell suffered injuries amounting to grievous bodily harm. She had a very large open wound to her abdomen, severe fractures of the bones in her pelvis and surrounding area, serious injuries to nerves, blood vessels and skin, internal injuries to her spleen and renal system and to her calf and forearm. But for immediate medical intervention she would also have died. She was transferred to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne on the following day. She required multiple surgeries and there were continuing fears she would lose her life. She eventually left hospital after more than a month but has since had a very long and difficult period of recovery. She remains seriously affected and the ongoing physical and psychological consequences of her injuries, greatly added to by the loss of her husband, are likely to be lifelong.
Your plea of guilty to these crimes involves the admission that you drove at a speed or in a manner which was dangerous to the public: that the driving was in a real sense potentially dangerous to a person or persons nearby. That question is to be determined objectively having regard to all the circumstances of the case. It does not involve proof or admission that you intended to drive dangerously or were conscious of the risk that your driving posed but acted despite the risk. What occurred was a terrible error of judgment. Ordinarily, drivers must stop at a red traffic light and it is an offence to not comply. However, the road rules do not apply to police officers when it is reasonable that they do not apply. For example, a police driver may disobey a red light when it is reasonable do so in order to respond in a prompt manner to an incident or situation. Here, it was proper for you to proceed expeditiously although I have some doubt that it was reasonable to go through the red light at all. More importantly however, even in a situation of real emergency, which this was not, a driver of a police vehicle is not absolved from the duty to take reasonable care. To proceed through the intersection against the red light at the speed and manner in which you drove when the circumstances made it so dangerous to do so was a very serious failure to take reasonable care. This was not a prolonged course of dangerous driving but the level of danger was high. You were in the central business district of Launceston, during the summer holiday season, at a time of the evening when other pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the immediate area was to be expected. The street was in fact busy at the time with both pedestrians and vehicles. You saw pedestrians. Two pedestrians in particular who were crossing Paterson Street with a green pedestrian signal had to run to the other side when they observed the vehicle you were driving approaching at speed. It later emerged that there were about 12 pedestrians and 14 persons who were passengers in vehicles in the immediate area, many of whom would have been at risk and all of whom were subjected to the trauma of having observed the collision and its aftermath. Mr Shea’s partner, Ms Manion, suffered a fractured sternum. You are not to be punished for that consequence but it gives an added indication of the danger which was posed.
In the immediate aftermath of the collision you told another police officer that you had cleared the intersection before proceeding through, but that could not be correct and it is no longer claimed by you to be the case. Your vision of traffic approaching along St John Street in both directions was obscured by vegetation or buildings or both. Despite that, you did nothing to ensure that it was safe to proceed through the intersection. The high risk that you may collide with another vehicle lawfully travelling through the intersection, which in fact eventuated, and the potential damage that such a collision may cause to anyone in the vicinity would have been obvious to any reasonable observer.
This is a tragic case from every perspective. You are aged 41. You have no prior convictions apart from three speeding fines imposed in 2003, 2004 and 2008. You are otherwise a person of good character. You are married and have three children and have the support of your family and many others. You had been a police officer since 2007 and had a strong belief in a duty to protect the public. You were acting as sergeant and likely on an upward career path. However a psychiatric report produced on your behalf indicates that your role as a police officer imposed very significant demands on you and was taking its toll. The general demands of your work and a series of traumatic incidents had already manifested in depressive symptoms, marital disharmony and social withdrawal. One aspect of this is said to be relevant to your manner of driving. As a police officer you had, on a number of occasions, been directly exposed to the potential risk posed by persons with mental health difficulties in situations of conflict, particularly family violence. Your father, also a police officer, was seriously injured in such a situation when you were a child. As a result, you perceived a need to respond quickly to the call to assist your colleagues which you received on that evening when informed that it was a “mental health incident.” Whilst that may serve to explain your response, it is not asserted that your state of mind reduces the seriousness of exposing others to such obvious and serious danger or the need for a sentence of general deterrence. It could only be concluded that you gave little or no thought to what the consequences of your driving might be.
Your guilty plea is in your favour because it facilitates justice, avoids the need for a trial and spares witnesses from having to recall and give evidence about these traumatic events. It also, however, avoids the risk that you may have been found guilty of a more serious crime. I am satisfied that you are, and have been since these events, overcome by remorse and that you are intensely aware of their devastating and far-reaching impact. Those feelings are likely to remain with you for your life. That is some punishment in itself. The psychiatric report indicates that since the collision you have developed post-traumatic stress disorder. You pose no risk of other criminal conduct. There is no need for any sentence to deter you from future offences. You have now resigned as a police officer and your career in that capacity is over. The State accepts that, as a former police officer who has served for years in this State, imprisonment will be more difficult for you than it would be for a person not in that position. It increases the risk that you may be the target of violent, threatening or otherwise unpleasant behaviour and an additional need for protection may arise. The conditions in which you are housed in prison will alter as a result. Moreover, amplified by your PTSD, you are fearful of prison for that reason which again will make prison more difficult. For you, any sentence of imprisonment is a harsh punishment.
Decisions and sentences in this State over the past 15 years that involve the crimes of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving demonstrate that there has been a marked increase in the length of the sentences. Consistent with community concern there is now an increased emphasis upon general deterrence and recognition of the need to impose sentences which reflect society’s condemnation of driving behaviour which has that result. Many factors may lead a person to drive dangerously, including alcohol or drug use, thrill seeking, rage or to evade police. In cases like that, sentences must, as far as can be achieved, serve to strongly deter people from acting in such a way. Most cases fall into one or more of those categories, but this is not one of them. You were not affected by any alcohol or drug. You drove as you did because you thought you were doing your duty. It involves a lesser degree of criminality. Conversely however, what occurred was a gross breach of your duty in another respect, and a breach of the trust the community places in police officers, to not expose members of the public to such danger. There is still a strong need to punish, condemn and discourage dangerous driving, however motivated. The inherent nature of motor vehicles is such that, driven dangerously, they pose a high risk of causing death and serious injury. To draw upon the words of the Attorney-General in 2017 when introducing other legislative amendments, unsafe driving has significant social, health and economic consequences for individuals and the Tasmanian community and an obvious and terrible physical and emotional effect on those directly involved, as well as family, friends, witnesses, emergency services personnel and hospital staff. Those comments could not be more amply demonstrated than in this case.
The direct consequences of your dangerous driving are the loss of Mr Campbell’s life and terrible injuries to Mrs Campbell. The indirect consequences extend far further. Mr and Mrs Campbell lived interstate. What ought to have been a pleasant holiday in Tasmania instead resulted in tragedy. I have heard a moving statement from Mrs Campbell about the profound and permanent impact, both on her and their three children, of the loss of a husband and father, and from the injuries she suffered. Mr Campbell’s parents and sister have also made victim impact statements describing their grief and sense of loss resulting from the death of their son and brother. Mrs Campbell and members of Mr Campbell’s family have travelled from interstate to be present at this sentencing hearing, an experience which is no doubt confronting and distressing for them, but which may also, hopefully, serve some therapeutic purpose. That said, no sentence of whatever length can undo or make up for the harm which has been done.
Aaron Bonner, you are convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and of causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving. I impose one sentence. You are disqualified from driving for two years from your release. Your driver licence is cancelled. You are sentenced to imprisonment for three years from today. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of that term.