{"id":284202,"date":"2025-11-14T15:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T15:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/284202\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T15:14:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T15:14:19","slug":"man-who-drove-into-floodwater-in-nsw-central-west-sentenced-over-boys-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/284202\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who drove into floodwater in NSW central west sentenced over boy’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man whose car was swept away while trying to drive through floodwater in the New South Wales central west, killing a five-year-old boy, has avoided jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The boy died when Joseph El Jer attempted to cross a flooded causeway at Graddle Creek between Narromine and Tullamore on September 23, 2022.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The 40-year-old, along with three other passengers, managed to escape the car, but the five-year-old boy was trapped inside, with police divers later finding his body in the submerged vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the NSW District Court at Parramatta on Friday El Jer was sentenced to an intensive corrections order for just over a year, and will need to complete 500 hours of community service.<\/p>\n

In handing down his sentence in, Judge Philip Ingram told the court El Jer would also need to complete counselling “for his risk taking behaviours” and “prolonged grief” over the incident.<\/p>\n

\"rescue<\/p>\n

Joseph El Jer and three other people were rescued when he attempted to drive through floodwater in 2022.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

El Jer pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death and negligent driving occasioning death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The charge of negligent driving was withdrawn in the court.<\/p>\n

El Jer, who was not in custody, appeared to be emotional during the sentencing hearing, and dipped his head as Judge Ingram recounted details of the incident, and wiped his eyes with a tissue.<\/p>\n

When giving evidence at an earlier sentence hearing in September, El Jer told the court it was “the worst decision” of his life and he “did everything I could” to save the child.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A memorial has been erected for the five-year-old boy who died in 2022 at the Graddle Creek crossing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McGrane Way was shut at the time of the incident after up to 150 millimetres of rain was recorded in the district, with court documents stating the flood-level warning indicated a water height of 1.3 metres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court heard previously that El Jer had waded through knee-high water to inspect the causeway before deciding to drive on it, before the car stalled and was washed away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"cars<\/p>\n

Two vehicles were washed into Graddle Creek on the night of the five-year-old’s death.\u00a0 (ABC Central West: Xanthe Gregory)<\/p>\n

Driving warning<\/p>\n

Judge Ingram directly warned El Jer about his driving behaviours during the sentencing hearing, which lasted for an hour and a half.<\/p>\n

The judge said El Jer has an “extensive” driving record, including multiple speeding offences and a mobile phone use offence.<\/p>\n

“He has been suspended from driving 12 times,” Judge Ingram told the court.<\/p>\n

Speaking directly to El Jer, Judge Ingram urged him to address his behaviours in therapy, and warned him of possible consequences if he were to return to court for driving-related issues.<\/p>\n

“You should anticipate a far less favourable outcome,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You know the phrase ‘having the book thrown at you?’\u2026 you’re getting out of here by the skin of your teeth today.”<\/p>\n

Construction has started on a bridge over Graddle Creek to replace the causeway, after decades of campaigning from local residents.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man whose car was swept away while trying to drive through floodwater in the New South Wales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164157,23979,24654,94844,43,164156,44,44035,1158,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-284202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-child-death","tag-drowning","tag-floods","tag-floodwater","tag-headlines","tag-joseph-el-jer","tag-news","tag-nsw-district-court","tag-police","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}