1. Gemma Sargent was charged with culpable driving causing death, negligently causing serious injury, and a number of other charges.
2. Sargent, 19, was driving four friends from Ballarat to Geelong for a party on New Year’s Eve in 2015. At one point, the car overtook another vehicle which was being driven at 130km/hr. Sargent was travelling up to 140 kilometres an hour when she lost control of her car at Mount Mercer. The car flipped and rolled over, killing 19-year-old Nathaniel Merritt-Price. Sargent was an L plater at the time of the incident and no one in the car was qualified to supervise a learner driver.
3. Sargent appeared in the County Court.
4. Sargent was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. She will be eligible for parole in five years.
5. The crime referred to in this case study is anindictable offence because it is a more serious crime that is usually heard in the County Court or the Supreme Court (for the most serious indictable offences) by a judge or justice sitting with a jury.