Dealer’s ‘slap on wrist’

PAKENHAM mother Lyn McTighe has claimed a drug dealer who left her daughter to die in his car of an overdose had been given little more than a “slap on the wrist” as punishment.
Ms McTighe’s comments came after Abraham Wong, 28, was sentenced in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court last week to three months’ jail.
Mr Wong pleaded guilty to charges of possessing, using and trafficking drugs and administering a drug of dependence to another person.
Ms McTighe’s daughter Belinda Davey, 21, became Victoria’s first gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) fatality when she drank from a bottle containing the party drug in Wong’s car.
Ms McTighe told the Gazette the nine months since her daughter died had been a nightmare.
She said she was considering campaigning for a stronger punishment for Wong, who has appealed against his sentence.
“It makes my blood boil,” she said.
“My girl’s life was taken and they’re saying his sentence was too harsh. You just can’t give someone a slap on the wrist and say ‘don’t do it again’.”
Ms McTighe said she did not believe justice had been done.
“It’s just ridiculous,” she said.
“She shouldn’t have died, there’s no way she should have died. I still have that expectation that she’s coming home.”
Ms Davey, a nurse, had been at a dance club in the city on the night she died after celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday.
The court heard Ms Davey had believed the liquid substance GHB, also known as Grevious Bodily Harm, was water.
The court heard that when Ms Davey overdosed, Wong rubbed speed into her gums in the mistaken belief that it would be an antidote for the GHB.
He did not call an ambulance but left Ms Davey in the car.
An offduty policeman noticed Ms Davey in Wong’s car and contacted emergency services, but she died 45 minutes later.
Mr Wong’s appeal against his sentence, which included a further threemonth suspended jail term, will be heard in March.
Character witnesses for Wong said he was now a Christian who had given up drugs.
Magistrate Paresa Spanos said deterring other young ravers and drug dealers was her most important consideration when punishing him.
The magistrate said she took into account Wong’s lack of prior convictions, the remorse he had shown and the fact that he cooperated with police during their inquiries.
“The sentence that I impose must, above all, convey the clear message that the sale and administration of (illicit drugs) is dangerous, illegal and will not be condoned,” she said.
Ms Spanos also fined Wong $500 for possessing a prohibited weapon, which was found when police raided his house after his arrest, and ordered he pay another $200 to the court fund.