CHRISTINE KELLETT
November 27, 2009
A drugged driver who killed two schoolboys after driving on a footpath in a race to make a Centrelink appointment has had her 10-year jail term cut on appeal.
Tania Winifred Clark, 35, killed Southport State High School mates Jye Strong, 16, and Nathan Sprecak,15, after mowing them down in her speeding Ford Falcon station wagon at Labrador on February 7 last year.
Tests later revealed the former nursing assistant had been drinking and had mixed a cocktail of prescription medication with cannabis, including twice the recommended dose of valium and morphine.
The teens had walked out of a convenience store when Clark mounted the footpath in an effort to overtake another car she thought was driving too slowly and drove 100 metres before hitting the pair.
She then drove off.
Clark was sentenced to a decade in jail and declared a serious violent offender after she pleaded guilty in October last year on the eve of a manslaughter trial.
She immediately appealed the sentence, arguing it was too long.
In a decision handed down by the full bench of the Court of Appeal today, Clark had a year shaved off her prison term after the court found the judge who originally sentenced her had not given enough credit for pleading guilty and saving her victims' families "the pain of reliving the incident and the insult of persisting in a denial of responsibility".
More importantly, Justice Patrick Keane said the judge had failed to give appropriate weight to Clark's mental health at the time of the incident. She was later diagnosed as suffering bipolar disorder and had been in a manic state.
While her crime of killing two innocent children was "grave", he said the 10-year sentence did not take into account her prospects for rehabilitation.
"There must nevertheless be recognition that her behaviour was irrational, rather than deliberately anti-social," Justice Keane said.
"It must also be recognised that her irrationality was, to some extent, the consequence of her bipolar disorder and that her moral culpability is reduced as a result."
Clark's serious violent offence declaration - which would have guaranteed she serve at least eight years behind bars - was also overturned, meaning she will be eligible for parole after serving a third of her new nine-year sentence.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/irrational-killer-driver-wins-jail-reprieve-20091127-jvym.html
