Anger over Redbank hit-run driver

Nine-year-old Maddison and mum Cherie Olsson on their driveway outside their Redbank Plains home where an unlicensed driver mounted the kerb, hitting Maddison, before driving off.Photo: Sarah Keayes NO1609AA

POLICE have ruled out appealing a suspended sentence given to a man who ran down a nine-year-old girl in a hit-and-run late last year.

Amosa Junior Fetalaiga, 23, was given a six-month wholly suspended sentence and a $600 fine in November after he lost control of a car at 100kmh in a 60kmh zone in Redbank Plains.

His car struck nine-year-old Maddison Olsson, but the unlicensed driver sped off without checking to see if she was hurt.

Police prosecutors argued in Ipswich Magistrates Court that Fetalaiga, who has three pages of driving history and has never held a licence, deserved jail.

But instead he received the suspended sentence and was banned from driving for 18 months.

At the time, the Queensland Police Service (QPS) said it was considering whether to appeal the sentence and officers were preparing a file for Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson.

But a QPS spokeswoman this week confirmed an appeal into Fetalaiga’s sentence would not be pursued.

“After careful consideration of the prospects of success, public interest and comparable sentences in the context of the particular circumstances of this case, an appeal seeking to challenge the sentence imposed in the Ipswich Magistrates Court on 16 November 2009 was not initiated,” the spokeswoman said.

Maddison’s mother Cherie Olsson said she was angry Fetalaiga would not spend any time behind bars for hitting her daughter and just driving away.

“I think he deserves something; even if it’s only a few months in jail it might give him time to think, because there’s still to this day no apology. He knows where we live,” Mrs Olsson said.

“I really don’t call what he got a sentence. I don’t see $600 and another suspended licence as punishment.”