Historic sentence for Sydney cop who killed Aboriginal teen

A wail has rung out through a courtroom as, in a first for NSW, a police officer was sentenced for killing an Indigenous teenager.

Benedict Bryant was found guilty in November of dangerous driving occasioning death after he parked his unmarked car in front of a stolen trail bike ridden by Jai Wright in 2022.

The 16-year-old Dunghutti youth was thrown off the bike when he crashed into the car, sustaining critical head injuries. He died in hospital the following day.

An overflow courtroom in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court was required to accommodate Wright’s family and friends as they gathered to hear Bryant’s sentencing on Friday.

Many were wearing T-shirts bearing a picture of the teenager’s face.

An emotional cry rang out from the teeming gallery as the officer was sentenced to a two-year intensive corrections order – a term of imprisonment served outside jail.

“No sentence can ever measure the value of a human life, especially not a life tragically lost so young, a life not fully lived, a life that matters,” Judge Jane Culver said.

It is the first time in NSW that a police officer has been held criminally responsible for an Aboriginal death during a police operation, according to the Aboriginal Legal Service.

Jai’s mother Kylie Aloua previously said she didn’t want Bryant to be jailed, so his family wouldn’t have to suffer the same loss she feels.

The judge described that wish as eloquent “in a way that is utterly humbling” as she relayed a victim impact statement written by Aloua.

The statement was accompanied by a chorus of sobs and the emptying of tissue boxes around the courtroom.

“Every ambulance siren, every police siren, every rushed footstep takes me straight back to that moment,” Aloua wrote.

“He will never reach adulthood ... I will never be a grandmother to his children.

“The loneliness is overwhelming. I’m not living, I’m surviving.”

Culver was visibly moved by the words, turning to address Jai’s mother directly.

“Your son certainly mattered, and continues to matter,” she said.

Jai’s father Lachlan Wright said the impact of his son’s death was still being keenly felt.

“I know this will never end for us all ... because all we have is a big family without the glue that kept us together,” he wrote in his own victim impact statement.

The judge found Bryant, who still serves as a police officer, should have known that placing his car in Jai’s path without lights and sirens on could have caused a crash that posed a serious risk to the 16-year-old.

Culver also found the tenured officer should have guessed someone disobey