A child left with catastrophic injuries after a car ploughed into him says he was trying to save his three-year-old brother.
“I was being a big brother to my little brother, I pushed him out of the way so he doesn’t get hurt like me,” Huseyin Pek, 8, told his mother after the crash.
Thanh Ngoc Vo had arrived in Australia five days before the September 2023 crash and was practising driving around the block in his wife’s car when he hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
The 49-year-old unlicensed driver ran over the young children, who were playing in a puddle behind their grandparents’ home in inner-Melbourne suburb Braybrook.
Huseyin was seriously injured and has undergone several surgeries but may never walk properly again, while his little brother Burak Pek suffered minor injuries.
The boys’ family said they were relieved “justice is served in our favour” after Vo admitted dangerous driving causing serious injury and was jailed on Wednesday.
“I’m still angry but I came here for my son and I’ll be here for him on our next court date,” his mother Demet Aydin said outside the County Court.
“I don’t accept that he is sorry for what he did to my son.”
Inside the court, a heartbreaking statement from Aydin was read out where she described hearing the crash and fearing the worst.
“Everything went silent, slow motion … all I could hear was revving and bang, bang, bang,” she said.
“I thought Huseyin must have been dead.”
Vo was pulling into the laneway when he accidentally stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes of the Toyota Prado, he told police.
He pushed on the accelerator even further and hit the two children and three parked cars.
Vo ran from the scene to his home, near the scene of the crash.
When police arrived shortly after, Vo fell to his knees in a prayer position and was arrested.
Huseyin’s numerous injuries were described as “catastrophic” by prosecutors and required emergency surgery and almost two months in hospital.
He suffered fractures and deep cuts to his head, including a 20cm injury from his left eyebrow to the middle of his head.
“I can’t look at his face because I’m in tears,” Ms Aydin said.
She said Huseyin was once “the happiest boy” but his leg injuries mean he may never walk properly again.
“He wants me to give him a time frame for when he will be normal again but I can’t,” she said.
“I don’t know what his future looks like, maybe he won’t be able to walk properly again.”
Aydin hoped Vo would receive a lengthy prison term and will be deported to Vietnam after serving it.
“Doesn’t this man feel sorry, doesn’t he think he should’ve helped my boy?”
Judge Duncan Allen thanked Ms Aydin for her “poignant, tragic” description of what had happened to her child.
“No doubt the most painful thing she’s ever had to do,” he said.
“The impact of what happened that day, and Mr Vo’s driving, has been truly devastating in so many ways.”
Defence barrister Zoe Broughton asked for Vo to be assessed for a community work order but accepted he would serve some time in prison for the tragedy.
“I dont think I could easily stand here and urge Your Honour to avoid any loss of liberty,” she said.
The hearing was adjourned to October 28 and Vo, who had been on bail, was taken to prison.
