The Court held that an 18-year-old unlicensed driver convicted of dangerous driving occasioning death at 140 km/h, with a prior Children's Court conviction for reckless driving on the same road, fell in the low end of objective seriousness where contextual circumstances of the offending were largely unknown. The Court rejected the Crown's characterisation of the conduct as 'abandonment of responsibility' and declined to treat alcohol found in the offender's blood as relevant to objective seriousness absent evidence of a causative role. An aggregate sentence of 3 years' imprisonment was ordered to be served by way of an ICO on strict conditions, with the Court holding that the statutory paramountcy of community safety under s 66 of the Sentencing Procedure Act can be determinative in favour of an ICO even where culpability exceeds momentary inattention, relying on a close reading of Pullen and the reasoning in YZ v R [2025] NSWCCA 165.
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