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news
Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgRoad rage driver who rammed and killed cyclist and then boasted about it jailed for 10 years
A woman who rammed a cyclist in Queensland and drove away from the scene, leaving him to die, and later boasted to family and friends about what she had done, has been jailed for 10 years after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Brisbane Supreme Court heard that Joanne McAuley, who did not hold a driving licence, evaded justice for nearly a decade after killing 26 year old Shui Ki Chan, reports the Guardian.
The 49-year-old motorist may only serve less than five years in prison, however, since she will be eligible for parole in July 2026.
The judge presiding over the case said that McAuley had flown into a “sheer rage” after the victim, a restaurant worker who was on his way home after finishing his shift, flipped her his middle finger on the rural Warrego Highway at around 7.30pm on 23 August 2012.
McAuley took two separate exits from the highway as she tried to find Mr Chan, a Hong Kong national, and insisted she only meant to “scare” the cyclist, but instead crashed into him, claiming that she had lost control of her vehicle.
Mr Chan, who was catapulted onto a grass verge, sustained a fractured pelvis, but McAuley drove away from the scene.
His body was discovered the following morning, and while a post mortem could not identify the precise cause of death, shock, hypothermia and loss of blood were all cited as contributory factors.
Clayton Wallis, prosecuting, was highly critical of the police investigation into Mr Chan’s death, which had previously also been criticised at a coroner’s inquest.
He told the court: “Police were enlisted immediately, and right from the outset, the investigation was in my words ‘less fulsome’, or in the words of the coroner ‘inadequate’.”
He also said that in the decade since Mr Chan’s death, McAuley had boasted to friends, family members and others about what she had done, with her accounts “tailored to her audience” and becoming increasingly elaborate as time passed by.
She was claimed to have said that she reversed over the victim “more than once,” and that she had run him over because he was Asian, with Mr Wallis saying that McAuley “made racial slurs and remarks about the man she had struck.”
He added: “The defendant’s conduct is reprehensible. She engaged in protracted and deliberate road rage. She had time for her anger to cool ... she was not affected by alcohol, drugs or mental illness. It was deliberated, calculated anger.”
McAuley had been charged with murder in June this year but pleaded guilty today to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Sentencing her, Justice David Boddice said: “Because of sheer rage and nothing else you caused the death of a 26-year-old male who was simply riding a bicycle home from work.
“You deliberately drove your vehicle, which you were incapable of controlling, so close to the deceased that it was inherently likely that he would be struck.
“Your behaviour on the night evidenced a complete disregard for human life. Your behaviour in the days following and in the ensuing years showed your complete lack of remorse,” he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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22 comments
It's fascinating that so many posters here know so much about Queensland's legal system and in particular what constitutes murder vs manslaughter. Perhaps you could let the ODPP know where they went wrong?
There are clearly inconsistancies in the law in Australia. In Queensland, Murder is Murder and carries a 20 year minimum term. She demonstrated a complete lack of empathy, or remorse, was calculating and used the car to chase down the cyclist with the intention of causing him real harm. No mental health issues, give me a break. I imagine the problem arose for the prosecution in proving that she intended to kill him, he wasn't dead on impact, but died later of injuries, hence the manslaughter plea, but 5 years, come on, what kind of message does that send out to the wider society, worse still to the deceased person's family, who have clearly endured so much and are still not having closure? Racism? Almost certainly. If this had been a white prominent Australian, it would have been a lot tougher on the perp
She chased the guy, knocked the guy off his bike deliberately and then left him to die. Then she boasted about it for 10 years. It's an appalling case.
She was found guilty of Manslaughter yet all those facts point to premeditation and that would surely point to murder. Quite how they allowed the lesser charger to be used instead of taking her on her self confessed racially motivated killing of another human being is beyond me.
Yep, I tend to agree.
By her own admission she had reversed over the cyclist multiple times. That's clearly murder.
Austrailians (especially from the Brisbane area) being overtly and proudly racist... who would have thought...?
Are you seriously suggesting that Australia is more racist than the UK? Whilst there's racism here I have a non-white wife who'd beg to differ: she's happily lived in Australia for over 20 years but when we were posted to London for a couple of years she couldn't take more than a year of it and we moved back to Australia early. But that's no surprise - your own government established that 18% of the British public agreed with the statement that “some races or ethnic groups are born less intelligent than others”. And a whopping 44% agreed that “some races or ethnic groups are born harder working than others”. And then there was Brexit, which appeared to be driven largely by xenophobia.
In relation to this case, at least we actually jail these killers.
Now I would never claim the the UK has no racism, but please look at the way that mainly white Australia treats is original population.
As I recall it, the original dispossession of Australia's indigenous people was by the English who, for reasons known only to themselves, decided that Australia had no actual residents. Therefore anyone who was there didn't benefit from the existing international law at the time relating to the colonisation of settled lands. So, unlike the case in NZ, there was no treaty and no rights. In case you think that was too long ago, it was only in the 1960s that, after kicking them off their land, the British irradiated Aboriginal land at Maralinga with plutonium whilst testing atomic bombs and funnily enough - given the half-life of plutonium - that land is still irradiated despite a couple of clean up attempts. Then there's the people of Diego Garcia .... and the people of the Chagos Islands ....
You are absolutely correct, it's monstrous. And modern (independent) Australia has continued in the spirit of that fine tradition.
You are absolutely correct, it's monstrous. And modern (independent) Australia has continued in the spirit of that fine tradition.
[/quote]
As has the UK .... I acknowledge modern Australia's failings on that front but my point is that there's no moral superiority for the UK, which appears to be the view of the OP above.
Fun aboriginal fact: The creation myth of Budj Bim told by the Gunditjmara people is possibly the world's oldest story (37,000 years old): https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/budj-bim-0013281
If you feel up to it, the Coroner's report is linked from the Guardian article and makes for some quite shocking reading. The poor chap would likely have survived because the report states that the injuries were non-life threatening. So. 10 years? Is it long enough? Not at all. I don't know what the sentencing guidelines in Australia are but I think she has only got 10 years because she has pleaded Guilty. Should the DPP pushed for a murder conviction? Possibly?
Since this was no spur of the moment thing, and she demonstrated malice aforethought, and she left him dying, I am surprised at the lack of a murder charge.
I'm also rather surprised at the failure of so many people, to whom she apparently told this story, to report it, but maybe her friends are just as sick as she is.
Blimey! That coroner's report makes for shocking reading. The police "investigation" was so pathetic that the coroner referred the officer to the Police Commissioner.
“Your behaviour on the night evidenced a complete disregard for human life. Your behaviour in the days following and in the ensuing years showed your complete lack of remorse,” he added.
I think the word he is looking for is psychopath. This woman should never be released.
she ought to be hung, drawn and quartered.
That's hardly a commensurate punishment. If you want an eye for an eye just knocking her off a bike would do quite adequately. No shortage of possible executioners.
We already discussed this story hours ago, on the Live Blog
Only hours? Road.cc are speeding up then - there's been a couple of items picked up recently that were years old.
how do you think it came to the attention of roadcc?