The truck driver who used a stolen semi-trailer to lead police on a 100-kilometre chase along the New England Highway before causing a fiery trail of destruction in Singleton has been jailed for 12 years and six months.
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In sentencing Rodney Johnson in Newcastle District Court on Friday, Judge Tim Gartelmann said it was “astonishing no one was killed” on the afternoon of October 11, 2017.
“The trail of destruction that occurred was akin to a war zone,” Judge Gartelmann said.
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Johnson, who stole the prime mover from a truck stop at Murrurundi , led police on a 1.5 hour pursuit in what the judge described as a “staggeringly dangerous” course of driving.
Several people who were injured when the prime mover ploughed into their cars shortly before it caught fire in George Street, Singleton, told the court on Wednesday that their lives would never be the same following the incident.
Judge Gartelmann acknowledged that no sentence could compensate them for their injuries and what they continued to suffer.
Johnson, who has been in custody since the incident, will be eligible for parole after serving six years and six months of the sentence.
