Lachlan Poraic Birmingham: Albany driver avoids jail after woman who rode his car bonnet had brain bleed

An Albany man who left a woman with a brain bleed and skull fracture when she fell off the bonnet of his car while he was driving has been fined $5000, and had his licence disqualified for two years. Lachlan Poraic Birmingham, 22, appeared in Albany Magistrates Court on Thursday for sentencing on one charge of dangerous driving in circumstances which subsequently occasioned grievous bodily harm, after he was convicted of the charge on February 9. Police prosecutor Sgt Warrick Walker told the court at about 1.20pm on November 8, Birmingham was with friends at the carpark at the Albany marina in his Ford Falcon XR6 when a woman he was talking to “willingly” climbed on to the bonnet of his car. He started driving at about 20km/h with the woman on the bonnet before coming to a stop about 50m away, and reversing back to their initial location, where she climbed off. She then climbed back on to the bonnet, and Birmingham began driving again, at about 30km/h, while swerving “in an attempt to scare her”, Sgt Walker said. She lost her grip and fell off the left side of the car, hitting her head on the bitumen and losing consciousness for a short period of time. Birmingham immediately stopped the car, and a friend of the woman took her to Albany Health Campus. Sgt Walker told the court her body came close to being driven over by the car. The woman received a fractured skull, bleeding on the left side of her brain and required four staples to close a wound on the back of her head. Birmingham’s defence lawyer Lucy Bourne said the victim had asked him to drive with her on his car and he had been “reluctant” to do it. Ms Bourne said Birmingham disputed that he wanted to scare the victim. The lawyer said the victim had told Birmingham after the incident that it was “not his fault”. “He accepts it was a dumb thing to do,” Ms Bourne said. Magistrate Dianne Scaddan said the incident “speaks for itself in how dangerous it is, and how stupid it is” and said the victim “could have died”. “All of this was avoidable . . . by you saying, ‘No, don’t climb on to the bonnet of the car, no, I’m not going to drive’,” Ms Scaddan said. “It was a great lark until somebody got hurt, and somebody did get hurt.” She said Birmingham could “count your lucky stars” that he was sober during the incident, or he would have been facing a jail term. “They were lucky, you were lucky; that’s all this boils down to,” Ms Scaddan said. “And as I say, it was all avoidable . . . It might look fun in the movies, but it ain’t fun for the person whose head hit the concrete.” Birmingham received a $5000 fine and had his driver’s licence disqualified for two years.