'Where do you go from here?' Family's despair after driver jailed for leaving man for dead
A callous driver who left a young man to die after a fiery crash has been sentenced to three years in jail.
Ashleigh Gason, then 21, was killed when his motorbike slammed into the back of Santino Bankal’s car on Victoria’s Nepean Highway in July last year.
As the car burst into flames, Bankal didn’t stick around to help the young man. Instead he calmly walked away and caught a taxi home.
In court on Tuesday, Judge Susan Pullen said Bankal, 28, had no intention of helping Mr Gason.
Unlicensed and on a community corrections order for other crimes, he was selfishly worried about getting into more trouble.
“Your failure to render assistance was inhumane, callous and cowardly. You left without offering assistance for no good reason,” she said.
Bankal’s girlfriend dobbed him in the day after the crash. He then told police the reason he left the scene was because he needed time to look after his cats.
The victim’s heartbroken family says although the sentence was adequate, nothing will bring their son back.
“The sentence doesn’t fix anything; he’s going to jail for a few years, but we have a lifetime of my son gone,” the victim’s father Mark Gason said.
CCTV played in court shows the moment Mr Gason’s motorcycle erupted in a fireball.
“You’ve got that numb feeling now and where do you go? Where do you go from here?,” mother Elizabeth Archer said.
“[He was] just such an amazing young man, gone too soon.”
Bankal will be eligible for parole in 21 months.
