![\"Dozens](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d174e39ebfab27814af3ca04a70491a1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA driver who was using his phone before he hit and killed a teenager on an e-scooter near Newcastle has been sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail.<\/p>\n
Jaycob Gemza, 21, was driving a ute when he struck 14-year-old Bryson Dimovski at Warners Bay on July 28, 2023.<\/p>\n
Newcastle District Court heard Gemza’s car drifted about one metre into the fog lane, hitting the teenager.<\/p>\n
The teenager was propelled onto the bonnet, hitting the windscreen before being thrown down an embankment. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gemza pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death and failing to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing death.<\/p>\n
The court heard he stopped at the scene for a couple of minutes and looked around on foot before leaving, but didn’t call Triple Zero (000).<\/p>\n
Judge Paul Marr said Gezma concealed his car in a back street before calling his girlfriend for a lift because he thought he was over the alcohol limit. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“At all times he didn’t know if a person was alive or dead,” Judge Marr said.<\/p>\n
The court heard Gemza called police several hours later after being alerted to a post on social media about a missing boy.<\/p>\n
Before handing down his sentence, Judge Marr noted Gemza was reading and typing on his phone before the crash.<\/p>\n
He said had the driver been keeping a lookout, he would have seen the victim and been able to turn his steering wheel. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Gemza will serve a minimum three years and three months in jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Family and friends of Bryson Dimovski attended court for the sentencing. (ABC Newcastle: Carly Cook)<\/p>\n
Family anger over sentence<\/p>\n
Outside the court, Andrew Dimovski said the court system failed his son.<\/p>\n
“A boy who had his whole life ahead of him, he was left to die on the side of the road like he was nothing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The court’s answer to that: three years, three months.<\/p>\n
“If that was your family, you tell me if that’s justice?”<\/p>\n
Mr Dimovski said Gemza was rewarded with a discount on his sentence for entering an early guilty plea.<\/p>\n
“We’re calling on the Attorney-General, Michael Daly, to review these laws, because you should never be rewarded for leaving the scene of a crash.”<\/p>\n
Judge’s message to courtroom<\/p>\n
Before sentencing proceedings started, everyone in the courtroom was asked to turn off their mobile phone, not just put them on silent.<\/p>\n
Judge Marr told everyone to do this because “they [phones] are a distraction to you and to me”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We each share a responsibility to others on the road”.<\/p>\n
He then asked the courtroom not to turn on their mobile phones until after they got home.<\/p>\n
“Don’t do it for me, do it for Bryson Dimovski,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Are they worth the life of a child? The answer will be, ‘No.'”<\/p>\n
Judge Marr said he did not want to see the sadness, anguish and grief experienced by the Dimovski family to be repeated.<\/p>\n
Outside court, Mr Dimovski also had a message for drivers.<\/p>\n
“When you get behind the wheel of a vehicle, please, just focus on driving,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The consequences are catastrophic, destroy lives, in fact, the entire generation.”<\/p>\n
With time already served, Gemza will be eligible for parole in February 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A driver who was using his phone before he hit and killed a teenager on an e-scooter near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,288668,73496,288669,48240,288667,44,288666],"class_list":{"0":"post-591071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bryson-dimovski","11":"tag-district-court","12":"tag-e-scooter-fatal","13":"tag-hit-and-run","14":"tag-jaycob-gemza","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-warners-bay"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591071","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=591071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}