A Sydney cop has been found guilty of dangerous driving causing death over a collision where an aboriginal teenager riding a stolen trail bike crashed into his parked police car.
NSW Police Sergeant Benedict Bryant, 47, was charged after Jai Kalani Wright, 16, died of serious head injuries suffered during the collision with the unmarked car in Alexandria in February 2022, and on Thursday NSW Supreme Court Judge Jane Culver ruled Bryant should have known the bike thief would not stop.
Wright’s death is also being investigated by the NSW Coroner as an indigenous “death in custody” because police were trying to detain him at the time, and a crowd of family members and activists gathered outside the court, waving aboriginal flags, burning leaves and displaying Black Lives Matter slogans.
Bryant’s lawyer Paul McGirr said his client would appeal, saying he was shocked at the decision and that the death would never have occurred if teenagers weren’t “out on the streets doing things they should not do” and “everyone was at home and in bed like they should have been”, ABC News and 9News reported.
A New South Wales police officer has been found guilty of dangerous driving causing death after an Indigenous teen, riding a stolen motorbike, collided with the officer’s parked vehicle. pic.twitter.com/VxP17KgR2y
— Caldron Pool (@CaldronPool) November 30, 2025
The court heard Bryant was responding to a report of stolen vehicles when he headed to a well-known dumping site and heard a directive not a pursue an incoming bike. He then parked his vehicle with no lights or sirens near the end of a bike lane Wright was emerging from at speed.
Crown prosecutor Phillip Strickland SC argued in court that Bryant was told not to pursue the stolen bike, and therefore should have known that parking his vehicle in the road would have “created a risk” of endangering Wright by causing him to drive dangerously to avoid arrest.
“The accused had relevant information that would allow him to conclude that the rider of the trail bike would go to considerable lengths to avoid capture,” Mr Strickland said, adding that he should have known Wright would not stop due to his 22 years of experience as a police officer.
Bryant’s lawyer, Brent Haverfield SC, told the court Wright’s riding of the trail bike over a barrier was the main factor in his death, which was “no way attributable” to the police officer’s driving.
“If Your Honour was to find the driving into the intersection … was a manner dangerous, the act that actually occasioned, caused, the accident, was Jai driving over and entering into the intersection,” he said.
“Jai’s riding over the barrier is the main or the most significant factor.”
He also told the court his client’s vision was obstructed by another police car parked in front of his that also prevented him from seeing how fast Wright was going.
But Judge Culver found that although Bryant in no way intended to cause Wright’s death, and it was possible he made a “reasonable mistake”, it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that the officer was “driving the motor vehicle in a manner dangerous to another person or persons”.
“The accused so seriously failed to properly manage the vehicle that he created a real danger,” she said.
“The accused effectively established a roadblock without reasonable grounds.”
Political commentator and former police officer Evelyn Rae slammed the decision on Sky News Australia and on her Facebook page, saying the ruling seemed political.
She pointed out that Bryant was cleared by an independent police investigation that recommended no charges, but on the last day possible the Director of Public Prosecutions charged him with dangerous driving.
“Sergeant Bryant was stationary, and he was parked. You can see where his vehicle was parked in relation to where the accident happened, and when you see that footage it makes absolutely everything abundantly clear that this reeks of something else,” she said.
“This does not seem like justice at all, and if you follow the logic of what the prosecutor said … that ‘as an experienced officer of more than 22 years Bryant ought to have known that the rider would not stop’. Let that just sink in. So basically this sets a precedent for every police officer that wants to make an arrest.
“People are saying that online if it wasn’t an indigenous person, would this happen? And I don’t blame people at home for asking that question, because what else could it be, it doesn’t make sense.”
NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick responded to the Sky News segment by saying: “This is appalling.”
Header image: Left, Benedict Bryant (9News). Right, the scene of the crash (NSW Supreme Court).
The post Cop found guilty of dangerous driving after aboriginal teen on stolen bike hit his parked car first appeared on The Noticer.
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