Lee pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm to his passenger Ashton James Whittingham, and killing Mr Tudor, being a driver involved in a crash and failing to stop, and driving while disqualified.

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Lee will be eligible for parole after serving three and a half years and will be banned from driving for five years upon his release.

Dylan Lee, you plead guilty to manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm. The charges arise from your criminally negligent driving of a motor vehicle. I also agreed to deal with the related summary charges of driving while disqualified and failing to stop at the scene of a crash.

At about 1.50 am on Friday 7 September 2018 you were driving your Ford Falcon sedan on Wellington Street in Launceston. You were taking your acquaintance, Ashton Whittingham, from Mowbray, where you had been, back to Mr Whittingham's home in Youngtown.

You stopped at the BP service station at the Morties complex. After buying fuel, you drove back into the centre of the three southbound lanes on Wellington Street. As you did so you accelerated harshly, causing the wheels on your car to momentarily spin. It had been raining and the road was wet.

As you proceeded south you first reached the intersection with Elizabeth Street and then the intersection with Frederick Street. Both intersections are controlled by traffic lights. The speed limit on Wellington Street is 60 kph. By the time you reached Elizabeth Street you were travelling at between 86 and 90 kph. After proceeding through that intersection you continued to accelerate.

By the time you reached the intersection with Frederick Street your vehicle was travelling at between 117 and 123 kph. The traffic light was red. You had a clear and unobstructed view of it because the road is straight for 158 metres before the intersection. Mr Whittingham saw the light was red and told you to slow down but you did not. You drove into the intersection against the red light.

Adrian Tudor was driving west along Frederick Street towards his home in Trevallyn. He was on his way home from work and was alone in his car. He entered the intersection at the same time as you from your left. Mr Tudor had the green light. You saw him at the last moment. You did not attempt to stop. You made a futile attempt to accelerate to an even higher speed to avoid him.

The front of your car struck the driver side door of Mr Tudor's car with such catastrophic force that it was pushed south along Wellington Street more than 50 metres beyond the intersection. His car was heavily damaged and Mr Tudor was trapped inside. He suffered massive traumatic injury to his chest. He died on the way to hospital after having been cut from the wreckage of his car.

After the collision you did not stay at the scene. Your car had struck a power pole causing the power lines to be disrupted. At first you encouraged Mr Whittingham to run off with you. After realising that he was trapped in your car, you opened the passenger side door allowing him to get out. He was badly injured. However you left without assisting him. You made no attempt at all to render assistance to Mr Tudor. The emergency services were called by an employee of a nearby service station.

The police searched for you but did not find you until your mother phoned the police and told them you were in Newstead. You were found near a refuse bin where you had been hiding. You had suffered spinal injuries. You were taken to hospital where you remained for three days.

While at hospital you declined to provide a sample of your blood for analysis. After your discharge you voluntarily participated in a police interview. You admitted that you were the driver, but downplayed your responsibility by denying that you had accelerated your car and falsely claiming that the traffic lights had changed to red at the last moment. You told the police that you were very tired at the time, and you left the scene because you were scared about what had happened and wanted to talk to your mother.

When Mr Tudor died he was 48, married, with two teenage children. He was close to his broader family. His wife and sister have, through their victim impact statements, movingly described the terrible impact of his loss. The loss is also felt through the broader community where he was well known through his employment and community involvement.

Mr Whittingham suffered grievous injuries to his left arm in the form of serious fractures and open wounds. He has required multiple surgeries including skin grafts. I have no formal victim impact statement from him but the information I was given suggests a continuing and long term physical disablement and psychological impact.

You were 22 at the time and are now 23. You had an unremarkable upbringing and have a supportive family. You were in receipt of social security benefits. You have no physical or mental health conditions which are relevant to sentence. Mitigation arises from your early plea of guilty. It indicates a willingness to accept responsibility, facilitate justice, and, importantly, avoids a trial and the added trauma to which Mr Tudor's family and Mr Whittingham would be subjected.

I will reduce the sentence I would otherwise have imposed as a result. Your decision to leave the scene indicates a lack of immediate remorse. I accept that you now have some appreciation of the gravity of what you have done and are sorry for it. Although you have not been to prison before, your record is highly relevant to sentence. You were first disqualified from driving when you were 18 for failing to have proper control of a vehicle and driving with alcohol in your blood.

Since then you have three convictions for driving while disqualified. In May 2018 you were disqualified from driving, fined and sentenced to probation for nine months for three counts of driving with an illicit drug in your body. You were subject to that probation order when these offences were committed. The most recent instance of driving while disqualified was committed on 6 September 2018, the day before this crime. At about 10 am you were apprehended by the police driving at Perth.

You were arrested, taken to the Longford police station, charged with driving while disqualified and admitted to bail to later appear in court. The bail document was found in the car you were driving at the time of the collision. Of course you remained a disqualified driver. When interviewed you told the police that you had acquired that vehicle only that day by swapping it for another car. It had tyres with inadequate tread and a worn brake pad but it is not contended that the condition of the car had anything to do with the collision.

There is no evidence that you were affected by consumption of alcohol or drugs, which would otherwise have aggravated your crime. Yours was not an especially prolonged course of dangerous driving and no other instance of danger has been disclosed to me. The driving extended over a distance of about 300 metres at a time when the level of traffic was less than it might have been at a different time of the day.

However the appearance of Mr Tudor's car in the intersection was not by any means random or unusual. It is an area in which traffic can be expected at any time of the day or night. You should not have been driving at all and you only drove because you agreed to give Mr Whittingham a lift for a small monetary reward.

By doing so, in light of your record, your disqualification from driving and when you had, only that day, been admitted to bail for driving while disqualified, you demonstrated a complete disregard for the law and for authority and increased the level of your culpability. You say that you were not conscious that you were facing a red light and did not hear Mr Whittingham warn you to slow down.

However, this was not momentary inattention. You had already travelled through at least one intersection. There was ample time for you to see and obey the red light, and you should have anticipated that there may be traffic crossing Wellington Street at the intersection. Your deliberate acceleration over some distance to such extreme speed on that road, at that location, at that time, created a grave risk that death or serious injury would follow, a risk added to by your later admission that you were tired.

You did not pay attention to the warning, not that you should have needed one. Your counsel submitted that you were not showing off, but there is no explanation for your driving other than from excitement or as a demonstration of daring or bravado. Your speed left no time for reaction or adjustment and dramatically increased the likely impact of a collision. Tragically that risk manifested itself in the loss of Mr Tudor's life and grievous injury to Mr Whittingham.

No sentence can undo the harm you caused. I must have regard to sentences which have previously been imposed for similar crimes. The Parliament, the courts and the community all recognise death and injury from negligent driving as a serious social and financial problem.

A crime which results in the taking of the life of one person and serious injury to another is a crime of considerable seriousness. Because a high proportion of crimes like this are committed by young offenders, the objectives of reform and rehabilitation must give way to the need for sentences which adequately deter, punish and condemn offenders and protect the public. I will allow for your relative youth by permitting eligibility for parole, so as to allow you to integrate back into the community under supervision.

However the need for punishment, deterrence and vindication of the victims is also relevant to assessment of the minimum time you should spend in custody.

Dylan Lee, you are convicted on both counts on the indictment and on counts 3 and 4 on complaint 30701/19. I impose one sentence. You are disqualified from driving for five years from your release and any driver licence you have is cancelled. You are sentenced to imprisonment for six years from 12 June 2019. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served three and a half years of that term.