{"id":684657,"date":"2026-05-21T06:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684657\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T06:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T06:56:13","slug":"adelaide-lawyer-who-drank-1-15l-of-wine-before-fatal-hit-run-gets-reduced-jail-term-on-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684657\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide lawyer who drank 1.15L of wine before fatal hit-run gets reduced jail term on appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A “grossly intoxicated” Adelaide lawyer who drank more than a litre of wine before running down a pedestrian has had her “manifestly excessive” jail term reduced on appeal \u2014 in part because she is the mother of a young child.<\/p>\n

Lauren Jean Willgoose was found guilty of causing a crash which killed respected clinical neuropsychologist Anthony Walsh<\/a> on Goodwood Road at about 10pm on June 30, 2021.<\/p>\n

Willgoose drank 1.15 litres of wine at the Goodwood Park Hotel before getting behind the wheel<\/a> and driving to her Cumberland Park home where she continued to consume alcohol.<\/p>\n

She had contended her driving was not the substantial cause of Mr Walsh’s death and that “the environmental conditions, combined with Mr Walsh\u2019s actions in creating a risk to himself by crossing the road when he did” had played a role.<\/p>\n

Willgoose was originally sentenced on March 5 last year to eight years in prison<\/a> with a non-parole period of five years and eight-months.<\/p>\n

She was also banned from driving for 12 years.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Anthony Walsh was killed in a hit-and-run crash at Goodwood in 2021. (NeuroSurgical Research Foundation)<\/p>\n

In a judgement handed down today, the Court of Appeal reduced that sentence to six years with a non-parole period of four years.<\/p>\n

She was originally eligible for release on parole in November 2030, but is now eligible for parole 20 months earlier, on March 5, 2029.<\/p>\n

In a published judgement, the court’s president, Mark Livesey and Justices Sophie David and Tim Stanley found the original sentence was “outside the permissible range for this offence and offender”.<\/p>\n

The court found there were aspects of Willgoose’s personal circumstances “which called for the sentence to be moderated”.<\/p>\n

“In particular, she was the primary carer of a very young son and there was evidence that, despite the best efforts of her family, her separation from her child would have a poor impact upon him.”\"Police<\/p>\n

The crash occurred on Goodwood Road in 2021.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

They noted that Willgoose was arrested the morning after the crash, and gave birth to her son almost 10 months later in late April 2022.<\/p>\n

The judgement also noted that Willgoose had no prior convictions, good prospects of rehabilitation and “had received some extra curial punishment by the loss of her career”.<\/p>\n

“It is to be accepted that this was a serious example of a grossly defective lookout by reason of the appellant’s intoxication and the fact she did not take any evasive action,” the judgement noted.<\/p>\n

“However, there were none of the other aggravating features which often attend more serious examples of this type of offence such as speeding, undertaking dangerous manoeuvres, ‘hoon driving’ or drag racing, driving while disqualified or driving in a manner dangerous for a lengthy period or over an extended distance.”<\/p>\n

\"Lauren<\/p>\n

Lauren Willgoose (right) was “grossly intoxicated” and had drunk more than 1.1 litres of wine before running down Anthony Walsh. (\u00a0ABC News: Ethan Rix)<\/p>\n

Willgoose, who was found guilty after a trial by judge alone of an aggravated charge of causing death by dangerous driving and leaving the scene of an accident after careless driving, had also appealed against her conviction, but the court dismissed that appeal.<\/p>\n

The judgement noted those verdicts were “not unreasonable or not supported by the evidence”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A “grossly intoxicated” Adelaide lawyer who drank more than a litre of wine before running down a pedestrian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[298934,1110,64,63,34155,106371,286947,2732,330039,38017,44,44600,330038],"class_list":["post-684657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anthony-walsh","tag-appeal","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-drink-driving","tag-drunk","tag-goodwood","tag-jail","tag-lauren-jean-willgoose","tag-lawyer","tag-news","tag-sentence","tag-willgoose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684657","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=684657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}