The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) has appealed the manslaughter sentence of a young driver who crashed into a group of people and killed five of them.
The Court of Appeal will be hearing the appeal at the end of this month.
The ODPP are appealing the sentence of which they said is inadequate or too lenient.
Danny Bension, who pleaded guilty to five manslaughter charge, was sentenced to a total of six and a half years in prison recently in the High Court.
The Presiding judge had imposed six and a half years for each of the manslaughter charges and then ordered that the sentences run concurrently.
Bension who was 19 years old was drunk when drove a land cruiser on the night of the offence, 7 July 2021.
He was spotted by the Police Patrol Team for careless driving when he took off from KGVI cross road at about 8pm to 9pm.
Police followed him and gave signs for him to stop but he continued on at a very high speed.
Along the road from Lee Kwok Kuen to Lunnga area, he met a traffic jam.
Bension tried to escape from the police by driving through the middle of the single lane road without indicating lights to other vehicles on the road.
His passenger told him to slow down and stop on the side of the road but he told the passenger to shut up and wind the windows up.
He continued to drive at a very high speed until prior to entering the Tenaru bridge, an oncoming vehicle entered the one way bridge from the Eastern end.
In an attempt to escape from the police vehicle that was behind him he veered the vehicle he was driving towards the old bridge.
At that time, a fundraising was held on the western end of the old bridge and there were spectators packed at the fundraising activity.
As Benson veered onto the entrance of the old bridge he turned off the vehicle headlights making it difficult for him to see anything in front of him.
In the process, he hit and killed five people.
He escaped but was arrested shortly.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
Solomon Star, Honiara
