The jury that acquitted a driver over the death of a teenage boy at a hoon event was never told key details about his past, including a Lamborghini crash and allegations involving a toddler.

Bryce James Dridan, 31, of Wendouree, near Ballarat, walked free from the County Court of Victoria on Thursday after being found not guilty of negligently causing the death of 18-year-old Trent DeZoete.

Dridan was driving a modified ute at the Stawell LOO5ENATS event on November 4, 2023, when he struck Mr DeZoete in a crowded public area after the vehicle’s brakes failed.

Mr DeZoete, who was from Pimpinio in western Victoria, suffered catastrophic injuries and died at the scene.

Following a weeks-long trial, the jury took less than a day to deliver its verdict and acquit Dridan.

He was also found not guilty of the alternative charge of dangerous driving causing death.

However, the Daily Mail can reveal jurors were not told that Dridan had previously crashed a $350,000 Lamborghini after losing control of the luxury car.

They also did not hear allegations that he had zip-tied a toddler “for laughs” — charges he was later cleared of in court.

Dridan’s criminal history shows that he drove the Lamborghini Gallardo into a Ballarat home just four months after Mr DeZoete’s death.

The father of three pleaded guilty in Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on December 18, 2024, to failing to control his vehicle, refusing a drug test and driving without registration plates.

He was fined $1,500 without conviction and disqualified from driving for at least four years because he refused the drug test.

Jurors were also not told that Dridan had allegedly restrained a “distraught” toddler by binding the child’s wrists and ankles with zip ties before filming the incident “for laughs”.

Dridan faced charges of producing and distributing child abuse material, false imprisonment and common law assault.

But in February, Magistrate Julia Barling ruled that the prosecution had no case and found Dridan not guilty of every charge.

Prosecutors alleged Dridan was babysitting the boy, who was about three years old, in May 2025 when he restrained the child’s wrists behind his back and tied his ankles together with zip ties.

He allegedly recorded the child, described by prosecutors as “distraught” and “screaming hysterically”, as he cried for his mother, the Ballarat Courier reported.

Footage played in court allegedly showed Dridan moving the camera towards the child’s zip-tied limbs while asking: “Who spilled the popcorn?”

He then allegedly sent the video to the child’s mother through Snapchat.

The child’s paternal grandmother alerted police after she saw the footage.

During his police interview, Dridan allegedly said it was ‘just a bit of a laugh’ and that the child had been ‘laughing’ during similar play at an earlier date.

Last week, Dridan’s County Court jury was told Dridan had methamphetamine in his system when he climbed into his heavily modified 2001 Holden Commodore ute with his mate in the passenger seat and roared onto the burnout pad.

Within seconds the brakes failed. 

The court heard the rear brake rotors, callipers, pads and the handbrake had all been ripped out. 

A fluid line on the front passenger side ruptured under the strain of full-lock steering and the pedal went soft.

The court heard Dridan pumped the brakes, yanked the handbrake and even switched the engine off, but the Commodore powered forward.

Crown prosecutor John Dickie told the jury fire marshals waved frantically and yelled for him to stop. 

One had the car brush his leg while it ran over the foot of another, he said.

Witnesses said the ute accelerated off the pad, well above the strict 5km/h ‘walking pace’ limit, blasted past the fire marshal zone, missed the left-hand turn back to the pits and careered straight into the crowded food-court area.

Mr DeZoete was walking in with a mate who leapt clear and screamed a warning to the teen, but he had no time to react.

The court heard the bonnet-less Commodore smashed into him, threw him onto the engine bay, then dragged him under the front as the car finally began to slow.  

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Bystanders frantically lifted the ute off the dying teenager and first aid was started on the spot. Mr DeZoete was pronounced dead at the scene. 

A roadside oral fluid test on Dridan came back positive for methylamphetamine. 

A blood sample taken later that evening showed 0.20 mg/L – a level experts said was high enough to seriously impair driving skills and create a significant public risk.

Dridan admitted to police he had taken ‘a bit of f****n’… cocaine, I don’t know’ the previous weekend.

He told officers at the scene he had ‘lost his brakes’ and ‘couldn’t do anything’.

In a formal interview he made no comment.

Mr Dickie argued a lethal combination of meth-impaired driving, knowingly continuing once the brakes had failed, and ploughing into a pedestrian zone instead of slamming into safety barriers or tyres amounted to criminal negligence. 

‘It was inevitable, if not a very real and significant risk, that a person would be hit outside the arena and cause serious injury or lose their life,’ he said. 

‘There were options available to the accused to slow down or stop his car on that skid pad.’

Prosecutors said Dridan had a ‘long, long history of drug use’ and allegedly received 10 penalty notices in the past decade or so for various actions, including driving without P-plates, using a mobile phone, speeding four times, and having an unrestrained passenger under 16, the Herald Sun reported.

They said three of his vehicles had been seized as evidence or impounded, but that Dridan had access to a large number of cars through his work as a self-employed mechanic.

Dridan’s lawyer Alexander Patton told the jury the incident was caused by a ‘complete absence of safety features’ by the event organisers. 

Mr Patton questioned why the exit to the burnout arena led into a heavily frequented area where cars shared the road with pedestrians.

‘The only thing separating (pedestrians and vehicles) was a single plastic bollard with a bit of bunting tied to it,’ he said.

‘Where was the safety marshal, where were the safety barriers, where were barriers stopping out-of-control cars from entering the food court?’

Mr Patton claimed a caravan had been blocking Dridan’s access to the pit stop area and that numerous cars had been allowed to drive away from the arena without tyres or with loose parts attached.

He also rejected an argument that Dridan, who was carrying a passenger with terminal cancer, should have deliberately crashed his car in the arena to bring it to a stop. 

‘It happened in seconds,’ Mr Patton said.

‘He does everything possible to avoid driving out of that arena … he pumps the brakes, turns off the engines, tries to brake, but there’s nothing else he can do.’

‘The prosecution says he should have crashed into tyres … it is not that simple, you cannot assess Bryce Dridan’s driving with the benefit of perfect hindsight.’

Mr Patton further disputed that his client was affected by methamphetamine at the time of the event.

While the drug was found in Dridan’s system after the crash, Mr Patton said he had not used methamphetamine on the day and argued that his client’s behaviour before the event suggested he was unaffected by any substances.

On Friday, the jury’s decision sparked a furious backlash from alleged witnesses to the incident.

‘I was also there and that is BS – cars don’t drive through the food area,’ one attendee claimed on social media.

‘There is a road next to the food area that every other car takes.’

Another added: ‘That fire marshal only got clipped by him due to him pulling my son out of the way as he left the pad.

‘He had all the opportunity to not leave the area and endanger the public.

‘There were tyres surrounding the pad he could have used, and then all the old speedway area to drive around till his brain realised to shut the car off.

‘Concrete walls lining the speedway he could have put it against … 

‘[There were] plenty of other ways he could of done instead of driving through the food court full of innocent people and kids.’

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Almost every woman attempting to cross the Channel to the UK in a small boat from northern France is raped during the journey, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has claimed.

Speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, Mahmood said asylum seekers were vulnerable to sexual abuse while criminal traffickers remained in control of who was able to make the crossing.

“We’re not in control of this border,” she said. “The people who decide which individuals gathered in northern France are allowed to board a dinghy are criminal gangs who are also, of course, people traffickers.”

“You can almost guarantee that every woman in northern France has probably been raped at some point on the journey,” Mahmood added.

She said some men had also been abused or threatened, arguing that criminal gangs should not determine who reaches the UK, seeks sanctuary and eventually becomes part of British society.

The comments came after around 300 anti-migrant protesters clashed with police on Sunday, following the arrival of dozens of migrants at a historic naval port. The group had reportedly used a new route to avoid detection.

Flares were released during the confrontation at a marina in Gosport, where the stand-off continued into the early hours of Monday.

The Home Office said 149 migrants had been brought ashore after being rescued in the middle of the Channel by the RNLI and a French coastguard vessel.

They were then taken by coach to a processing facility in Kent.

Protesters assembled near Haslar Marina in Gosport after migrants were seen arriving at about 10.15pm. They had been brought in aboard two RNLI boats late on Sunday.

Some demonstrators shouted “send them back” and “you’re not welcome”.

The arrival was the second known landing of a large migrant group this far west along England’s south coast in recent years.

During the podcast discussion with former Conservative minister Rory Stewart and former Tony Blair adviser Alastair Campbell, Mahmood also condemned balaclava-wearing protesters who have blockaded ports while claiming to support her policies. She told them to “sod off”.

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“They’re just troublemakers,” she said. “They’d kill me in a minute if they could, and they’d certainly drive me out of my own country.”

Mahmood continued: “Let’s be absolutely clear about who they are and what they represent. They don’t regard me as a true Brit, and they hate the fact that I’m Muslim.” 

The home secretary also said she identified with the “pro-Palestine cause” and felt “very uncomfortable” about the arrests of activists who opposed the government’s ban on Palestine Action.

More than 82 people were arrested by Merseyside Police outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last Monday. They were held on suspicion of wearing or carrying items expressing support for a proscribed organisation.

The arrests followed a demonstration organised by Defend Our Juries, during which scores of people sat outside the conference centre. Several held handmade signs declaring their support for the banned group Palestine Action.

A Merseyside Police spokesperson said the force respected the right to protest lawfully, while working to preserve order and protect public safety.

The force said it made ‘detailed and co-ordinated plans ahead of such events to ensure it can apply this consistently, fairly and proportionately’.

The spokesperson said not everyone present at the demonstration had been committing a criminal offence.

Mahmood said: ‘For those of us who have been in the pro-Palestinian cause all of our lives, these are people – sometimes you’ll know who they are, you know, you’ve been on the marches with them – it feels very uncomfortable to see them falling foul of section 13 of the Terrorism Act.’

However, she defended enforcing the ban on the group, regardless of her own views: ‘You’ve got to be able to apply your principles, even when it’s uncomfortable for you, because you’re going to really want to apply them when it’s something you, you know, with your whole heart, are feeling very passionately about.’

Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called an early general election after his government suffered a damaging parliamentary defeat over emergency measures aimed at tackling the country’s housing crisis.

The election will take place on November 29. Pressure on the government has intensified in recent weeks as Spaniards demand action on housing affordability, with protests breaking out in cities nationwide after public anger over the televised eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid last month.

Right-wing opposition parties joined forces in Parliament to defeat two emergency decrees containing measures designed to curb evictions and real estate speculation. The setback fueled speculation that Sánchez might bring forward the national election, which had been expected next year.

Announcing the election, Sánchez asked voters to decide whether Spain should “regress or keep moving forward.”

He described the opposition parties that rejected housing reforms—including restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants and automatic tenancy renewals—as a “far-right coalition that offers no proposals.”

Spain’s main opposition party, the People’s Party, welcomed the snap election announcement, posting a video with the caption: “At last.”

Sánchez, 54, has served as Spain’s prime minister since 2018, making him one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders.

Last month, the country was outraged by the treatment of 87-year-old pensioner Maricarmen Abascal, who was removed from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for 70 years after a dispute over a proposed 275 per cent rent increase.

Footage filmed inside the apartment showed riot police breaking through a barricade made of chairs, shelves and a lamp as supporters attempted to prevent the court-ordered eviction.

Ms Abascal’s father first rented the apartment in Retiro, an upmarket area of central Madrid, in 1956. She continued living there after her parents died, paying rent capped under an old tenancy agreement.

Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL, an investment company run by brothers Ricardo Alonso Fernández and Fernando Alonso Fuentes, bought the property in 2018.

Ms Abascal had been paying about €440 (£379) a month, but the company later proposed raising the rent to €1,650 (£1,420)—an increase of 275 per cent, according to Spanish reports. Her monthly pension is €1,350.

Courts had previously blocked three attempts to evict her.

The Bank of Spain estimates that the country faces a shortage of 700,000 homes.

Her eviction triggered mass protests across Spain.

Tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid over the weekend, protesting her removal and demanding stronger tenant protections as the country grapples with a housing shortage and soaring rents.

Protesters held signs calling for a general strike after Parliament rejected measures on Friday that had been drafted in response to anger over the eviction, as well as wider housing concerns.

Video from a protest in Valencia showed demonstrators charging at riot police with fences, while officers used batons to strike protesters.

Protesters also shouted insults at officers as they broke through a police barricade.

Sanchez has stood out globally for taking a strong stance on progressive issues from Palestinian statehood to defending multilateral institutions and cracking down on ‘tech oligarchs’, even as a series of setbacks and scandals weakened his position at home.

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Facing the electorate now is a risky move as Sanchez’s Socialist Party is trailing in opinion polls. However, he has been boosted by proposals to tackle a mounting housing crisis that were well received but were struck down by right-wing MPs on Friday, leading to planned new public protests about housing.

An election defeat would spell the end of one of Europe’s last few left-leaning governments at a time when the far-right is making unprecedented gains across the region as a growing swathe of European voters desert the centre ground.

Opinion polls suggest a coalition led by the conservative People’s Party (PP) with the support of Vox is the most likely outcome in Spain, ushering a far-right party into central government for the first time since the return of democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

Still, Sanchez, a wily political operator, has proven time and again his ability to surprise those who had long written him off.

Despite never winning enough votes to form a majority government, he has cobbled together a series of fragile and seemingly impossible coalitions including voices from the far-left to the separatist right to remain in power for three successive terms lasting eight years.

But growing fragmentation among his partners has meant the government has passed little in the way of legislation in its third term and failed to pass a budget since 2023, even as Spain’s economy has continued to be one of the best performing in the developed world. 

Sanchez took office after leading a move to oust centre-right Mariano Rajoy in the wake of major corruption scandals within Rajoy’s People’s Party. 

However, senior members of Sanchez’s own Socialist Party have in the past year faced allegations of graft, dragging down the party’s already weak approval rating which has hovered at around 26-31% throughout his tenure.

Against the odds, he won a second four-year term in office in 2023 despite heavy losses in earlier regional and local elections by negotiating support from a loose alliance of parties in parliament.

That was achieved after promising a highly controversial amnesty for pro-independence Catalan leaders in exchange for their support, a move still bitterly remembered by many voters as a betrayal of Spanish unity.

Sanchez won early plaudits for moves including the exhumation of Franco from a mausoleum the dictator built for himself outside Madrid, and the reform of a labour law that has seen unemployment fall to its lowest level in almost two decades.

He cemented his humanitarian and pro-immigration credentials early by saying in June 2018 that Spain would accept the Aquarius migrant rescue ship and its 629 passengers, after Italy and Malta both refused to let the ship dock in their harbours.

As other European countries have toughened their policies towards foreign arrivals, Sanchez has consistently argued that immigration is essential for sustaining Spanish growth by plugging gaps in key sectors such as construction, agriculture and hospitality and for providing revenue to prop up Spain’s strained welfare system.

More recently, his refusal to agree to US-led demands to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP while pivoting toward China has rattled US President Trump and some European leaders concerned about the threat of the bloc being flooded with Chinese goods.

Sanchez’s housing measures provided a rare chance for the Socialist leader to pitch himself as the leader of a mobilised left and distract from the more politically damaging issues of the migrant crisis in Ceuta and corruption scandals, said Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quiros, economist and president of consultancy Freemarket Corporate Intelligence.

‘This is a window of opportunity,’ de Quiros said. ‘If he does not call elections fast, (those topics) will return to centre stage.’

More to follow.