He took two lives and ruined the prospects of his own son, all because he chose to get behind the wheel of a car with a cocktail of drugs coursing through his system. Yet in a little over four years’ time Jeremy Paul Price will be eligible for parole – and that after his sentence was increased on appeal by the Crown, which argued the initial jail sentence of six years was “manifestly inadequate”.
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On a sunny April day in 2014, Price was driving along Bolong Road with his two-year-old son in the car. He swerved onto the wrong side of the road, colliding with a car coming the other way.
The elderly driver of the other car, Bernard Hayden, was killed instantly. His wife, Eileen, died in hospital two days later.
Price’s son sustained injuries that will deny him the use of the lower part of his body for the rest of his life.
In the calculus of the law, a little over six years behind bars is justice for incalculable recklessness and destruction. Two families have been torn asunder, a young boy faces life without the use of his legs and the perpetrator has every chance of walking free from July 2020. It just does not seem right.
While we welcome the Court of Criminal Appeal’s decision to increase the initial sentence imposed on Price, we also recognise it will do very little to ease the suffering he caused.
In the judges’ own words, “the objective gravity of the offences, and the offender’s moral culpability for them, was profound”. They said the injuries inflicted on Price’s son approached the worst class of case.
That assessment raises questions about the initial sentence handed down – six years’ jail with a non-parole period of four years. Yes, Price pleaded guilty to dangerous driving charges. But by any reasonable measure the taking of two lives and the ruination of a third because the offender made the choice to drive while comprehensively drugged deserved more than this relatively short stretch behind bars.
We hope Price’s fate sends a clear message to all drivers who think it is acceptable to get behind the wheel while intoxicated – and to do it while there is a child in the car. The consequences of your decision to drive can be catastrophic.
Lives can be lost or ruined forever. And even in the selfish reckoning of a drug addict, that decision to drive can land you in jail, where you are going to have a tough time getting your hands on the high you so desperately crave.
