freediver
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Is this too lenient? Is thinking you hit a politician a valid excuse?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Costello-staffer-hitrun-driver-fined/2007/07/24/1185043079042.html
A Canberra driver who hit the federal treasurer's chief of staff and left him critically injured on the side of a road has avoided a jail sentence.
Nealle Andrew Simpson, from the Canberra suburb of Monash, was fined $2,000 in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday, three-and-a-half weeks after he hit Peter Costello's staffer Phil Gaetjens and drove off without stopping.
Mr Gaetjens, 52, suffered head injuries and fractured ribs and was in a coma for about a week at The Canberra Hospital.
Simpson did not see Mr Gaetjens crossing the road until he was thrown in the air and landed heavily, the court heard.
Simpson did not stop his four-wheel drive ute because he panicked and thought he had hit a politician and would go to jail for the offence.
He panicked again next day when he saw newspapers, with some featuring the accident on their front page, so he tried to hide the vehicle by driving it about 80km from Canberra and abandoning it in the Bredbo River.
However, he was turned in to police two days after the incident by his parents, who had pleaded with their son to admit what he had done.
In sentencing, Mr Dingwall took into account Simpson's early guilty plea, full-time employment as a joiner, his remorse and lack of offences in almost 10 years.
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