Perth man fined for killing toddler by running him over with car

Posted 26 Aug 2016, 5:49pm

A man has been fined and given a suspended jail term over an incident in which a Perth toddler was fatally run over by a stolen car.

Lucas Davey, aged 22 months, died after he crawled under the car outside his mother’s home in Merriwa in April this year.

Karel Christopher Kivits was behind the wheel and left the scene when he was confronted by angry residents including a man with a metal bar.

Kivits handed himself into police the next morning.

The Perth Magistrates Court was told Kivits, whose licence had been suspended for reckless driving, had bought the car for $600 knowing it was stolen.

He pleaded guilty to a string of charges including stealing a motor vehicle and failing to report to police an incident in which someone died.

The court heard prosecutors accepted that Kivits had not directly caused the death of the child, and that he had left the scene not out of “callous indifference” but because of the situation that was unfolding.

However, Magistrate Robert Young told Kivits “you had no right to be in that car and no right to be driving”.

“It’s taken a tragedy of this magnitude to hopefully make you realise the things you do have an effect and an impact,” he said.

Magistrate Young also took into account that the child’s mother had expressed forgiveness for what had happened.

Kivits was given a 12-month suspended jail term, fined $1,400 and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

He was also fined $5,000 for six stealing offences.