Northern Territory man Jake Danby was sentenced to a shockingly light 12-month community corrections order (CCO) on September 15, after running down two Aboriginal men outside a Garramilla/Darwin shopping mall, killing one and seriously injuring the other on June 13 last year.
The NT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has since filed to appeal the inadequacy of the sentence.
Danby hit the two men with his vehicle in a 60 kilometre per hour zone in front of the Hibiscus Shopping Centre in the northern Darwin suburb of Leanyer. The 24-year-old did not stop, taking off in his car, leaving 39-year-old Kunwinjku man Mr Whitehurst dead on the roadside, along with his seriously injured 37-year-old First Nations companion.
Danby texted his friends after the fatal incident, that “Danbys like him don’t go to jail”. He described the people he had just mown down as “dogs” and “oxygen thieves”. He described the incident as a “two for one combo”.
NT Supreme Court Justice Sonia Brownhill said Danby’s texts were “disgusting”, before handing him a 12-month community corrections order and five months of home detention.
The NT DPP filed to appeal the inadequate sentence on September 19, spurred by the announcement earlier that day that Danby is the NT attorney-general’s step nephew.
The “punishment” came as demands rise for the federal government to stop the NT Country Liberal Party’s extreme law-and-order push, in which more First People, including children as young as 10, are being locked up.
The offence of hit-and-run causing death can carry up to 10 years’ imprisonment, but Danby received a CCO and home detention.
He appeared in Darwin Local Court on October 1 on other offences, including speeding, driving an unregistered vehicle, driving an uninsured vehicle and driving unlicensed.
North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency chair Theresa Roe told SBS that Danby’s sentence highlights the inequality in NT law. First People experience different responses, she said, only been exacerbated by the CLP’s law-and-order drive, which is leading to about 40 Aboriginal people being taken into custody every day.
Following Danby’s release, Mr Whitehurst’s sister said if an Aboriginal man had fatally hit a white man with his car and taken off, the driver would have been locked up.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics custody figures for the June quarter, 2482 Aboriginal adults are being held in NT prisons, accounting for 88% of the overall adult prisoner population in the NT.
For years, more than 90% of children jailed in the NT have been First Nations.
University of Technology Sydney Professor Thalia Anthony told the ABC: “There is a serious problem in the Northern Territory with Aboriginal lives on roads” and “the courts aren’t responding adequately”. She warned “there is clearly a perception being formed that if you harm an Aboriginal person on the road, there will not be serious consequences”.
The NT Independent revealed on September 19 that NT Attorney-General Marie Clare-Boothby is related to Danby, who is the stepson of her sister. Asked by reporters to comment on the sentencing outcome a day before this became public, Clare-Boothby failed to disclose her relationship.
The NT Independent also revealed that NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro was aware that Clare-Boothby’s step-nephew had run down and killed a man when she and Clare-Boothby were in the opposition.
Another issue is Brownhill's judgement, given her comment that Danby’s bragging text messages were “disgusting” but concluding he had shown remorse and expressed insight into his wrongdoing.
The Finocchiaro government law-and-order drive includes five tough-on-crime bills introduced shortly after it was elected. They include a crackdown on bail, which involved reinstating youth breach of bail, and an expansion of offences that trigger a presumption against bail. This has led to a spike in adults and youths being held on remand.
The CLP is introducing policies that criminalise poverty, including banning people wearing dirty or stained clothes from travelling on public transport. It wants to turn bus and housing estate inspectors into pseudo-police, armed with guns. These people are also set to be deployed to shopping centres.
The NT has just started a pepper spray trial, which involves members of the public being able to purchase quantities of the non-lethal weapon to “defend” themselves.
Finocchiaro also wants to cut funding to the NT Coroners Court in the wake of the release of the damning coronial findings into the death of Warlpiri Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker. The coroner said the NT police had all the hallmarks of a racist institution. Various NT land councils said they no longer trust the government to keep their communities safe.