Rev head jailed after crash caused pregnant woman to lose her baby
A drag racing enthusiast who slammed his car into a Sydney home, causing a pregnant woman to lose her baby, could be out of jail in less than three years.
Vanessa Farrugia was 20 weeks pregnant as she stood on the verandah saying goodbye to friends when Jason Mansweto's car smashed into the Windsor Downs house in June 2014.
Her horrific injuries led to her baby, a little girl she called Bonnie, dying in utero the next day and to her undergoing forced labour and delivery induced by medication.
Mansweto was driving an unregistered, restored car, when he lost control and the steering wheel came off.
On Tuesday, in Parramatta District Court, Judge Jeffery McLennan jailed the motor mechanic for four years and six months, with a non-parole period of two years and nine months.
The 44-year-old pleaded guilty to charges including driving dangerously occasioning grievous bodily harm to Ms Farrugia and to Sylvia Vella, whose left leg was badly injured.
Two other people on the verandah received relatively minor injuries.
Mansweto is a big fan of cars. According to court papers presented at a previous hearing, Mansweto had just finished rebuilding an "iconic" 1969 GT Ford Falcon XW model sedan, which was unregistered but bore plates with the number 69AGRO.
The mechanic, who was test driving the car for the first time, had never bolted the steering wheel onto the column from the time he bought it, having put the nut in the car console.
Meanwhile, Ms Farrugia was about to leave her friends' house.
"They were saying goodbye when they suddenly heard the loud sound of a car engine," the papers said.
"They looked across the driveway and saw a car coming up the road straight towards them.
"They had only seconds to try and get out of the way."
Mansweto applied the brakes to slow down for a corner but when they didn't work he pumped the brake with his foot and pulled back on the steering wheel, which came off in his hands.
Ms Farrugia, who was thrown back into the house and knocked to the floor, suffered terrible injuries including fractures to her skull, face and foot, a large deep cut to her forehead and leakage of spinal fluid under her skull.
She's been left with a permanent loss of her sense of smell, and had a craniotomy for her brain injury, plastic surgery for her facial injuries and numerous other operations.
Mansweto was jailed but the judge said the sentence imposed could not turn back the clock the last three years and the irreparable damage done.
“It cannot give Bonnie the life she never had,” the judge said during sentencing.
Mansweto was jailed for a minimum of two years and nine months, a maximum of four and a half. His lawyer indicated they plan to appeal the sentence.
