The devastated family of a teenage boy killed in a hit-and-run crash is demanding harsher penalties and changes to what they describe as a loophole in the law.
Bryson Dimovski, 14, was travelling home on an e-scooter in Warners Bay, within NSW’s Lake Macquarie area, in July 2023 when he was struck by a vehicle driven by Jaycob Gemza, who was 21 at the time and had been looking at his phone behind the wheel.
The impact threw Bryson onto the car’s windscreen before he fell down an embankment. Police did not locate him until six hours after the collision.
Gemza initially stopped at the scene but left shortly afterwards without making a triple-zero call.
As the hours passed, Bryson’s loved ones repeatedly drove by the site in their desperate search for him, unaware that he was lying only metres away beneath the embankment.
‘He just left him there,’ Bryson’s father, Andrew, told A Current Affair.
‘He ran back to his car, drove off and left Bryson for dead. Like he was nothing, [but] he wasn’t nothing.’
His mother, Melissa, said: ‘He was left there like road kill.’
Bryson Dimovski, 14, was killed after being hit by a car while riding his e-scooter home in 2023.
Bryson was thrown onto the windscreen before falling down an embankment, where police found him six hours later.
‘Not being able to hold him when he passed is something very distressing as a mother.’
Gemza pleaded guilty to failing to stop and assist, and to negligent and dangerous driving, in Newcastle Local Court earlier this year.
The maximum sentence for each charge is 10 years’ jail.
Gemza was jailed for five years but will be eligible for parole after three years and three months. He could be freed as early as February 2029.
‘We’ve got a life sentence, he doesn’t have a life sentence,’ Ms Dimovski said.
Before handing down Gemza’s sentence, Judge Paul Marr asked everyone in the packed courtroom to turn off their phones and not switch them back on until they got home.
‘They [phones] are a distraction to you and to me,’ he told the courtroom.
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‘We each share a responsibility to others on the road.’
Jaycob Gemza was recently jailed over the fatal hit and run
Bryson’s parents Andrew and Melissa are demanding change
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Should hit and run drivers face harsher sentences?
‘Don’t do it for me, do it for Bryson Dimovski. Are they worth the life of a child? The answer will be ”no”.’
Bryson’s parents are also campaigning for the four-hour drug and alcohol testing window to be expanded.
The court heard that Gemza allegedly drank three full-strength beers at a pub and bought a fourth before getting behind the wheel that afternoon.
By the time he handed himself in to police, hours after the fatal hit-and-run, after seeing a social media post about Bryson being missing, it was too late for him to be tested for drugs and alcohol.
A 20,000-strong petition for ‘Bryson’s Law’ was recently rejected by NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley.
The Dimovskis have vowed not to give up the fight in the hope that a similar tragedy can be avoided.
‘It’s not about revenge. It’s about accountability,’ Mr Dimovski said.
‘It’s about deterrence, so no other family walks in our shoes.’
Andrew Dimovski (pictured with son Bryson) and his family are also campaigning for the four-hour drug and alcohol testing window to be expanded
‘And if we can turn our pain into something that might help someone else, then it’s worth it.’
His wife added: ‘Bryson deserved nothing less than this.’