An 11-year-old lad was tragically killed when a driver crashed through the fence of his primary school and ploughed into a picnic table where he was sitting with mates.
Jack Davey was killed instantly on October 29, 2024, when a Toyota SUV mounted the kerb at Auburn South Primary School, in Melbourne, smashing through the boundary and crushing him and three classmates. Another child managed to escape with minor injuries.
In Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday, Jack’s father Michael expressed his grief and anger as he demanded answers.
“An 11-year-old boy, dead in an instant… Jack never saw the car, it’s impossible,” he said. “How does your car crash through that fence, over that median strip, into those poor children? It’s impossible, unbelievable and something I think about every second of the day. The lack of answers to those questions enrages me.”
The driver, 41-year-old Shaymaa Oun Ghazi Zuhaira, interrupted the parents’ evidence with loud sobs, shouting: “I’m sorry, really sorry.”
Prosecutor Anthony Albore withdrew a second charge against Zuhaira – of failing to have proper control of a motor vehicle – after she pleaded guilty to the careless driving charge, the Mirror reports.
Jack’s mother Jayde told the court the single charge against the driver was an “insult”. She said: “The charges go nowhere near the outcome. It is an insult to us, and to Jack, if there is no charge for killing him, where is his justice?”
Mr Albore told the court how Zuhaira, who held a P2 probationary licence, accelerated at over 70 per cent as she left a parking spot just before 2.35pm, ploughing through the fence and over a picnic table before her car came to a halt at steps leading to the sports building. Survivors recounted being flung under the vehicle, with one child stating: “Everything went dark, then under a car.”
Zuhaira had been in a meeting with the school principal about her son just minutes prior. She informed police that the accelerator and wheel were “stuck” and insisted she kept repeating: “I can’t control the car.”
Her solicitor, Matthew Senia, argued that the meeting had triggered past trauma from her life in Iraq, which affected her driving. “Her symptoms of trauma were triggered in meeting with the school principal, inhibiting her ability to drive the vehicle and leading to the misapprehension of the accelerator,” he stated.
However, Albore dismissed this, noting that witnesses described her as cheerful and smiling as she departed the school.
Mr Albore urged for Zuhaira to be convicted and given a community corrections order due to the severity of the offence. She will avoid prison but could face a driving ban, and is set to be sentenced on Wednesday.
