NOT LONG ENOUGH IF YOU ASK ME, A FEW MORE YEARS AND JUSTICE WILL HAVE BEEN SERVED.

High driver jailed for 10 years
November 25, 2004

AN unlicensed driver who killed a motorcyclist while high on a cocktail of drugs and driving on the wrong side of a Victorian freeway has received a 10-year jail sentence.


Crash scene ... the stolen car was on the wrong side of the road when it swerved in front of the motorcyclist


Jeffrey Allan Dobbin, 31, of Reservoir, was given a minimum eight-year jail term after pleading guilty to 12 charges including culpable driving causing death, theft of a car, failing to stop after a motor vehicle accident and aggravated burglary.

The Victoria County Court was told Dobbin drove a stolen car the wrong way down the Princes Freeway during peak-time traffic on April 16.

Nicole Knox-Smith, a 29-year-old Origin Energy employee, was killed instantly when Dobbin swerved in front of her motorbike near Hoppers Crossing, south-west of Melbourne.

The court was told Dobbin began a two-day crime spree after a Family Court decision removed his eight-year-old daughter from his care.

He consumed a cocktail of drugs including heroin, some rock heroin, 10 tablets each of codeine and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax on April 14, the court was told.

The next day he stole a car from suburban Thornbury about 8.20pm (AEST) and about 6.30am he was seen breaking into a house in Seaholme where he stole more than $2000 worth of goods.

The court was told that over the next two hours, police twice called off a pursuit as Dobbin abandoned the first stolen car after running off the road in Werribee and took a second car from a caravan park.

He drove on footpaths and over roundabouts, narrowly missing a pedestrian before he entered the freeway.

On the freeway, Dobbin crossed over a centre median strip to the other side of the road, drove in the emergency lane against the flow of traffic and struck Ms Knox-Smith as he was executing a U-turn.

Judge Jim Duggan said Ms Knox-Smith had no opportunity to avoid the collision and it was hard to imagine a "worse case of culpable driving".

He said Dobbin had never held a licence and had an extensive criminal record including several driving offences.

He said the only mitigating factor was that Dobbin had pleaded guilty and showed remorse.

Outside the court, the victim's father, Paul Smith, expressed satisfaction with the judge's decision, but said nothing would bring back his daughter.

"She was someone that was the rock of our family ... this whole event has shattered our family, it's broken us apart," he said.

The officer in charge of the investigation, Sergeant Geoff Exton, said the sentence sent a clear message to drivers.

"If you use illegal or legal drugs and it impedes your driving and you take someone's life on our roads you're going to go to jail for a very long time," he said.