Tara Cosoleto,AAP
An unlicensed driver has been jailed for nine years for killing a much-loved father and well-known Punjabi singer while high on drugs.
Corey Comport, 25, was travelling close to 170km/h when he crashed into a Jeep on the Bulla-Diggers Rest Road northwest of Melbourne on August 30, 2022.
The force of the collision caused the Jeep to slam into a Toyota Kluger driven by Nirvair Singh, who died at the scene from significant head and chest injuries.
Comport watched on through tears as he was sentenced in the County Court to nine years’ jail for culpable driving causing the 44-year-old man’s death.
The judge referred to the family’s victim impact statements, saying they were extremely moving.
“Your speed was outrageous and the impact was severe,” Judge Scott Johns said in sentencing Comport on Friday.
“(Mr Singh) was a much-loved husband and father … he was in the prime of his life.”
Comport sobbed during his October plea hearing, admitting to Mr Singh’s family that he never should have got behind the wheel.
The court was told the unlicensed driver had been travelling 168km/h in a 80km/h zone when he struck the Jeep about 3.30pm.
He had evaded police twice in the preceding 30 minutes, with multiple drivers later telling detectives they were scared as he weaved between lanes and overtook them.
A roadside drug test showed he was under the influence of GHB, methamphetamine and ketamine.
Judge Johns noted the devastating impact of Comport’s driving on Mr Singh’s family, especially his wife Harpreet Kaur and their two young sons.
The judge referred to the family’s victim impact statements, saying they were extremely moving and powerful, and their pain “leapt off the page”.
“The enormity of the loss is immeasurable,” he said.
“He was the centre of his wife’s world and his children’s … he was relied upon by so many.”
Judge Johns accepted Comport was genuinely remorseful and ashamed of his offending.
He also acknowledged the 25-year-old had a traumatic childhood, diagnosed mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, and he had been abusing drugs since his early teens.
That “constellation of factors” moderately reduced Comport’s moral culpability but the offending was still very serious and a jail term more than the eight-year standard was required, Judge Johns said.
Comport was sentenced to nine years in prison but he will be eligible for parole after five years and eight months.
His licence was cancelled and he was disqualified from driving for five years.
