Melbourne: A court in Australia on Friday jailed a man for 11 years for killing an Indian-origin taxi driver and his British passenger by smashing his stolen vehicle into their taxi while being high on drugs. The West Australian Supreme Court sentenced Antony Edward Fogarty, 24, who admitted to unlawfully killing of Kuldeep Singh and his passenger Sean Duncan Barrett.
Barrett, 36, had been in Australia for less than an hour and Singh, 28, was driving him from the airport to his hotel when they collided with Fogarty as he sped through a red light in October 2012, Australia's AAP news agency reported. The court heard that the pair was killed instantly as the taxi burst into flames.
Justice Michael Corboy accepted Fogarty, did not intend to cause the accident, but was driving with "recklessly excessive speed" and should have known the danger. "You were driving a stolen car, and for a considerable time prior to the collision, you were being pursued or under observation of police," he said.
The judge heard that Fogarty never had a driver's licence and was intending to evade police as he crossed to the wrong side of the road and ran several red lights. "It was almost inevitable that you would collide with another vehicle," Corboy said.
The court also heard when witnesses went to assist, Fogarty was screaming about pain in his leg and falsely claimed he was a passenger in the vehicle and that someone else had fled. The court head that blood tests revealed Fogarty was high on cannabis, amphetamine and methamphetamine.
Singh's wife was pregnant at the time and the child would grow up never having known her father. Corboy said Fogarty, a father of five, had a long criminal record, but was genuinely remorseful and had taken responsibility for his actions. He added it took courage for Fogarty to publicly apologise to the victims' families at a previous court appearance. Fogarty's sentence was backdated to October 2012, and he will be eligible for parole in 2021.
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