A MOTHER has been jailed for three months and given an 18-month community corrections order for drink-driving with 10 children in her four-wheel-drive.
Three of the children, aged one to 10, were seriously injured when Tanya Chilly lost control and rolled the vehicle in Rockbank on August 5 last year.
On Friday, Chilly was sentenced in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to spend three months behind bars for the high-speed crash. On her release, she will have to serve an 18-month community corrections order.
Magistrate Gerard Lethbridge said it was a “a difficult and tragic case” and Chilly’s relationship with the father of the children had been violent and abusive. He said Chilly had lived a life “enmeshed with alcohol and drugs”.
Mr Lethbridge noted that Chilly had abstained from alcohol since January and said she had “excellent” prospects for rehabilitation. He
balanced this against the need for punishment and deterrence.
Chilly, a mother of seven, had pleaded guilty to three counts of dangerous driving causing serious injury, nine counts of failing to ensure a child was restrained in the car, one count of driving unlicensed and one count of drink-driving.
-The Age
