A 25-year-old Indian taxi driver, who killed three members of the same family in a head-on car crash in Australia, has been jailed for at least seven years.
Gurwinder Singh was speeding while overtaking a truck when he lost control near Merton in 2009, hitting a car traveling in the opposite direction, local media reported today. The acccident killed Basil 'Tex' Rehe (55), his wife Robyn (45) and sister Suzanne (45).
Abbey Rehe, who was 12- year-old then, lost her parents and was badly hurt, as was her 76-year-old grandmother Joyce. Singh's passenger Amandeep Singh was also injured. County Court judge Rachelle Lewitan said Singh was on a student visa and will be deported at the end of his sentence.
Singh, of Murrumbeena, was convicted by a jury of three counts of culpable driving and three of negligently causing serious injury. Lewitan jailed him for 10 and a half years and ordered that he serve at least seven before being eligible for parole.
He had held a Victorian drivers licence for 10 months and qualified as a cabbie only a few weeks before the crash. Singh who said the incident haunted him had written an apology to the Rehe family. "If I could bring them back an'd swap my life for theirs I would in an instant," he wrote.
However, prosecutors said Singh's remorse was limited as he pleaded not guilty instead of accepting blame. Singh had been at Mt Buller with friends for the day and was returning to Melbourne when he swung onto the wrong side of the Maroondah Hwy to overtake a truck without warning. Rehe did his best to avoid impact but his car became airborne when struck and landed on its roof before bursting into flames.
The Rehes had been visiting family and were returning to Wodonga. Abbey and her brother Eddie, 16, are now living with relatives.
"Your conduct has had tragic and far reaching consequences for the Rehe family," the judge said. Lewitan said Singh was suffering post traumatic stress and his prison term would be harder than most as his family cannot afford to come to Australia to visit.