An Indian taxi driver who ran over a four-year-old boy in Adelaide and denied any wrongdoing has been spared jail and fined just $2,100 after changing his mind and pleading guilty.
Bahal Singh Chahal, 52, struck the child, who was riding his bike behind his father, with his 13cabs van while making a right-hand turn into a quiet street in Plympton Park on July 28 last year.
CCTV shared by 7 News shows the child following his dad across the street before Chalal’s van slams into him. The father then leaps off his own bicycle and rushes to help his son, who suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries including broken ribs, a broken collarbone and neck ligament damage.
Chalal was accompanied by an interpreter at court appearance in November where he denied the allegations, said he would strongly contest the charge of cause serious harm by careless use of a vehicle against him, and vowed to go “all the way” to trial.
But this week he faced Adelaide Magistrates Court after making a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated due care in exchange for having the original charge dropped, The Advertiser reported.
The court heard Chalal’s victim was hospitalised for eight days and missed two months of kindergarten as a result of his injuries, which also included cuts and bruises across his whole body.
Defence lawyer Tim McGrath told Chief Magistrate Mary-Louise Hribal his client was “deeply upset” by his offending and described the collision as a “tragic error”.
“This could happen to anyone. We’re dealing with a man who is terribly emotional about this whole matter,” he told the court.
“He wishes that family (the victim’s) every positive outcome they could have in life. The price he’s paid is incomparable to that of the father’s, and his son’s.”
Chief Magistrate Mary-Louise Hribal fined Chalal $2,100 and disqualified him from driving for 41 days.
Header image: Left, Chalal outside court last year. Right, CCTV footage of the incident (7 News).
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