{"id":11976,"date":"2026-05-15T09:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11976\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T09:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:33:19","slug":"speeding-driver-who-struck-and-killed-novelist-brenda-walker-jailed-for-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11976\/","title":{"rendered":"Speeding driver who struck and killed novelist Brenda Walker jailed for four years"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 31-year-old man who killed a university professor when his speeding vehicle hit her in Perth’s CBD has been sentenced to four years in prison.<\/p>\n

WARNING: Some people may find details in this story distressing.<\/p>\n

Lucas Martins Da Silva was driving his hatchback more than 30 kilometres an hour over the speed limit when he struck Brenda Walker on Kings Park Road in December 2024.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lucas Martins Da Silva was pictured outside the court in 2025.\u00a0 (ABC News: David Weber)<\/p>\n

Ms Walker, 67, who was on her morning walk, was thrown into the air and landed on the road, suffering traumatic brain injuries and fractures all over her body.<\/p>\n

Judge Wendy Gillan said the vehicle was “like a weapon”, though Martins Da Silva did not intend to hit Ms Walker.<\/p>\n

Martins Da Silva, who was 30 at the time, did not have any drugs or alcohol in his system, but his lawyer said he was fatigued as a result of working “excessively long hours”.<\/p>\n

“A tragedy in a true sense of the word for all parties,” defence lawyer Roisin Keating said.<\/p>\n

He had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in circumstances of aggravation.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The car driven by Lucas Da Silva after it hit novelist Brenda Walker.\u00a0 (ABC News: Garrett Mundy)<\/p>\n

Sitting in the District Court dock, Martins Da Silva wept as Ms Walker’s husband read out a victim impact statement, describing her as “my soulmate, my best friend”.<\/p>\n

Sentence ‘too light’: husband<\/p>\n

Speaking outside court, Ms Walker’s husband Alexander Ruskulis said he was pleased Martins Da Silva had pleaded guilty but believed the sentence he was given was too light.<\/p>\n

“He could be out on the streets in two years, whereas we live with the consequences of this for the rest of our lives,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Alexander Ruskulis, the victim’s husband, says the couple were looking forward to a leisurely retirement. (ABC News: David Weber)<\/p>\n

“There might be an appeal, that’s in the hands of the prosecutor.”<\/p>\n

Earlier, Mr Ruskulis told the court he and Ms Walker were both cancer survivors who had been looking forward to a “leisurely retirement”.<\/p>\n

“All future plans have been crushed,” he told the court.<\/p>\n

Mr Ruskulis described his wife as “well loved”, particularly by family members including her brothers Don Walker, of Cold Chisel fame, and Richard.<\/p>\n

Man admits killing novelist in crash<\/a><\/p>\n

A 30-year-old man pleads guilty to killing an award-winning novelist after ploughing into her with his car while driving at high speed along a city street.<\/p>\n

Judge Gillan accepted Martins Da Silva was remorseful and was unlikely to offend again.<\/p>\n

But she said it was an “egregious lack of judgement”.<\/p>\n

The court heard that Martins Da Silva, who was born in Brazil, was married but had little other support in Australia.<\/p>\n

He has spent 51 days in custody since the incident.<\/p>\n

He will be eligible for parole after serving two years and his licence has been disqualified for four years after he is released.<\/p>\n

Speaking outside court, Martins Da Silva’s lawyer David Manera said it was likely he would be deported after his release.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer David Manera says his client is likely to be deported after his release. (ABC News: David Weber)<\/p>\n

Ms Walker was an award-winning novelist and professor of English at the University of Western Australia (UWA).<\/p>\n

She won the inaugural Hungerford Award with her first novel, Crush, in 1991, as well as numerous other writing awards throughout her career.<\/p>\n

Her publisher Fremantle Press described her as a “friend and mentor to many \u2014 a gentle, generous, considerate person and a writer of immense talent and deep insight”.<\/p>\n

UWA called her “a widely admired senior figure in the Australian literary community”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 31-year-old man who killed a university professor when his speeding vehicle hit her in Perth’s CBD has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10761,22,21,12769,2835,1991,43,1525,12771,466,463,12772,553,1260,465,464,12770],"class_list":["post-11976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-accident","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-brenda-walker","tag-car-crash","tag-crash","tag-driver","tag-kings-park","tag-lucas-martins-da-silva","tag-perth-courts","tag-perth-news","tag-road-accident","tag-road-safety","tag-speeding","tag-wa-courts","tag-wa-news","tag-west-perth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}