Australia markets open in 9 hours 23 minutes

    +54.00 (+0.71%)

    +0.0004 (+0.06%)
  • ASX 200

    +50.30 (+0.69%)
  • OIL

    +1.35 (+1.66%)
  • GOLD

    -29.80 (-1.66%)

    -228.29 (-0.28%)
  • CMC Crypto 200

    +57.32 (+4.07%)

Son's garbo truck death pains his mother

·3-min read

A devastated mother has visited her son's grave every day since the brilliant economics tutor was run down by a garbage truck driver who moved his body before fleeing.

"This is the only way I can get close to my son now," Eileen Xie said in the NSW District Court in Sydney on Friday.

"My dear son left us a year and a half ago and our hearts are bleeding."

Tuiniua Fine, 53, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death, failing to stop and assist, and doing an act with the intention to pervert the course of justice.

The body of 21-year-old George Yuhan Lin was found on a footpath in Central Street in Sydney's CBD in the early hours of February 12, 2020.

Fine had been reversing at a speed of about 15km/h, 5km/h over the limit, when he ran over the pedestrian.

Fine then put on gloves, got out of the truck and dragged the tutor's body several metres away onto a footpath.

He got back into his truck and continued working, before being stopped by police about three hours later and arrested at Kings Cross

Fine's barrister, Evan James, referred to the driver's limited intelligence and the possibility he had gone into a "disassociated state" after he hit Mr Lin.

But prosecutor Cate Dodds rejected the submission, contending there had been a "deliberateness" about the actions of Fine who had ample time, when he had hit a human being not a milk crate, to let someone know what happened.

Judge Sarah Huggett said she did not accept there was evidence to support the disassociated state, but accepted Fine could have panicked in an extremely stressful situation.

In her victim impact statement, Ms Xie said the family emigrated to Australia from China when her son was aged four.

"George loved this country so much, he loved the life, and loved his family and friends," she said.

"He was such an excellent and hardworking young man, his wonderful life was just beginning."

In just over a year after emigrating, her son was fluent in English and later attended James Ruse Agricultural High School when he achieved a HSC score of 99.85

He helped other students, being "a kind young man who was happy to share his knowledge".

He studied for a double degree in law and economics at the University of Sydney and operated his own economics tuition business, which he felt was a meaningful job.

His economics teacher told his parents he had been "a very special student and person" who wanted economics to benefit society, not just something to make a few people rich.

He had planned to be a policymaker in Canberra so he could do something good not just take a corporate job.

Ms Xie said her son was considerate and respectful of his parents and on the last Father's Day before he died he took his father to a restaurant and gave him a pair of trousers.

He had joked "Dad I have better taste than you and I will buy your clothes in future".

Ms Xie said she wanted to ask the driver "do you know what you have done, because of your behaviour I lost our most precious son forever".

She intended to visit his grave for the rest of her life.

"The driver who killed my son have you ever imagined if this happened in your family and it was your child, your family member who was killed?"

He will be sentenced on October 1
