A man who ran over a 62-year-old lollipop lady and fled the scene has been sentenced to six months imprisonment and lost his licence for four years.
Prosecutor Peter Triandos argued that 35-year-old Matthew Windle, a banker for Westpac, “negligently took his eyes off the road” when he answered a text message, and later hit lollipop lady Susan Parsons with his car.
Prosecutor Triandos said that Mr Windle went to check on the woman, as did other people present at the scene, yet he did not call the police or an ambulance.
He drove off minutes later, abandoning the scene, claiming he needed to move his car.
As reported in The Age by Steve Butcher, the defence counsel George Georgiou SC referred to the remorse of his client, saying the hit and run was “very much out-of-character behaviour”.
“I wasn’t acting rationally,” Mr Windle said.
Windle pleaded guilty to negligently causing serious injury, failing to render assistance after an accident, failing to report to police an injured person, failing to give his name and address to an injured person and using a mobile phone while driving.
Judge Tony Howard characterised Mr Windle’s action as a “shocking thing” to take a text message while driving and then “run into a lollipop lady just doing her job, trying to help schoolchildren”.
Source: The Age