Hit-run driver described Indigenous victim as an ‘oxygen-thief’
A Darwin man who hit two Aboriginal pedestrians with his car and sped away has been given a community corrections order by the NT Supreme Court.
Jake Danby, 24, will also serve time in home detention after pleading guilty to the offence.
Dandy had later bragged to friends that he had run down an “oxygen thief”.
Justice Sonia Brownhill on Monday at the Supreme Court handed down a 12-month community corrections order, with five months to be spent in home detention.
Failed to stop
On June 13 2024, Danby was speeding in a 60kph zone when two men stepped out onto the road.
Danby struck them with his car and failed to stop.
39-year-old Mr Whitehurst, was thrown seven metres and later died in Royal Darwin Hospital.
A second man was hospitalised with non-life threatening injuries.
Racist language
Dandy used foul and racist language to justify his actions in a number of text messages to friends, something Justice Brownhill said “demonstrated a shockingly callous disregard for the welfare of the victims”.
“The text messages you sent … demonstrate that you were well aware, as soon as it happened, that you had struck a person with such force to cause him to fly up in the air and hit the windscreen of your car,” Justice Brownhill told him.
“The degree of callousness and disdain expressed in those text messages for two other human beings, who you have obviously harmed — most likely seriously — is difficult to fathom.”
Danby’s lawyer acknowledged the text messages were “disgusting” and that his client had since shown remorse.
Danby said after sentencing he was “extremely sorry” for what had occurred and acknowledged the text messages he sent after the incident were “disgusting”.
