The girlfriend of a driver who hit and killed a university student as she was crossing the road booked a rideshare to help them flee.
Lauren Hindes, 35, appeared via video link in Victoria’s County Court on Wednesday after she was charged with assisting an offender over the horror smash in August 2019.
Her then boyfriend Shane Cochrane, 38, was sentenced to a decade behind bars after he hit Nisali Perera as she was crossing the road.
The impact was so severe it flung her 60 metres through the air.
While delivering his sentencing remarks, Judge Gerard Mullaly said Cochrane was driving at a “fast rate of speed” when he ran a red light and ploughed into the Monash University student who was crossing Wellington Rd, Clayton.
A witness told police he saw her “falling from the sky”.
Cochrane, who was high on GHB and ice, kept driving, with his girlfriend Hindes in the passenger’s seat, and ditched the smashed-up Mazda at an abandoned church.
Hindes booked a Didi to pick them up. They then evaded police for five days before they were arrested, the court was told.
She also breached her bail conditions by taking phone calls from Cochrane, the court was told.
“You assisted him and you now have to face the consequences,” Judge Mullaly said.
“The first thing to do would have been to call police, not a rideshare.
“This was a totally avoidable and tragic set of circumstances. She (Ms Perera) thought it was safe, but was far from it.”
Judge Mullaly acknowledged the defence submission that Hindes tried to get Cochrane to hand himself in.
Defence lawyers also submitted she had cleaned up her life, had a new stable relationship and was 21 weeks’ pregnant. She was also supporting her teenage son.
Ms Perera’s parents earlier told the court they were wracked by guilt and despaired to think of growing old without their only daughter, and had questioned allowing her to come to Australia in the first place.
The driver had taken ice and GHB the night before, as was his daily habit.
Cochrane pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing death, failing to render assistance at the scene of an accident where a person has been killed, driving while disqualified, fraudulently using a number plate, and driving an unregistered vehicle.
Hindes was handed a community corrections order for two years and six months. She must also do more than 200 hours of unpaid community work.
