A woman who left her sister dying on a road after she was pinned between two cars following an argument has asked to be spared conviction as she is a victim herself.
Lawyers for Asyai Luk asked a Victorian County Court judge on Monday to hand her a fine but spare her a recorded conviction, after she pleaded guilty to downgraded charges.
Her sister Anong was dragged and pinned between two vehicles in Melbourne’s west in November 2022 when she tried to grab on to the passenger door of the car Luk was driving.
Luk, a learner, had been driving for hours on November 7 without a supervisor, prosecutor Peter Pickering told the court on Monday.
About 11.30am she borrowed her mother’s black Dodge and drove it with Anong and her cousin as passengers, he said.
She stopped the car in Sunshine, about 3pm, and went up to a house to tell the resident she was being attacked by her sister and to call police.
Luk returned to the Dodge where she continued arguing with her sister, who had got into the driver’s seat of the vehicle.
She hit her sister with a piece of clothing and Anong moved to the passenger seat before getting out of the vehicle, Mr Pickering said.
Anong tried to get back into the passenger seat but Luk accelerated forward as she was holding on to the door.
Luk drove forward one car length as her sister clutched the car door, with Anong eventually losing her grip.
Mr Pickering said Anong was thrown face forwards into another car and “fell to the ground screaming”.
Luk drove off and left her injured sister on side of the road.
Bystanders called emergency services and used towels to stem Anong’s bleeding until police and paramedics arrived.
But the 24-year-old, who suffered extensive skull fractures and severe blood loss, could not be saved and died in hospital later that evening.
Luk was previously charged with dangerous driving causing death, and failure to stop and render assistance, but those charges were downgraded to driving carelessly and being a learner driver without a supervisor.
Her barrister Kyle McDonald said Luk was “a victim herself” and asked for Judge Kellie Blair to fine his client without conviction, saying she would instead give an undertaking not to commit further offending.
Luk was trying to escape assault from her sister when the incident occurred, he said, and had already experienced enough distress from media coverage “due to the notoriety of the tragedy”.
The women’s mother, Aleza Gwit, submitted a statement that was not read to court about the impact of media attention on their standing in their local community.
Luk said the trauma from the crash was “overwhelming”, causing her stress and anxiety, in a letter to the court.
“The backlash from the community attention has been devastating,” she said in the letter.
Mr Pickering said Luk should be handed a conviction alongside a fine due to the “terrible consequences” her careless driving had, in leading to the death of her sister.
“Unfortunately in this particular moment everything went terribly wrong,” he said.
“This is a couple of seconds at the most … but it’s had terrible consequences.”
Luk will return to court on Wednesday for her sentence.
