{"id":44,"date":"2026-04-28T11:50:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/44\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:50:30","slug":"driver-who-crashed-killing-two-including-ella-rose-donker-gets-home-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/44\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver who crashed killing two, including Ella-Rose Donker, gets home detention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ella-Rose Donker <\/a>\u2014 a former Whangarei Girls\u2019 High School student \u2014 and Joshua Oliver Dobson \u2014 a shearer and father to a toddler \u2014 were fatally injured in the crash about 11pm on June 10 last year.<\/p>\n

Mathewson was driving at an excessive speed on a 60km\/h stretch of the Coatesville-Riverhead Highway<\/a> nearing Short Rd when he lost control at an S-bend.<\/p>\n

The car went into a ditch, Mathewson continued for a short distance before returning to the road. He over-corrected, which caused the vehicle to spin and slide sideways at speed along the road. It crossed into the opposite lane before the passenger side of it slammed into a concrete power pole at the intersection of Short Rd.<\/p>\n

Donker, who was in the front passenger seat, died at the scene from blunt force trauma injuries. Dobson died from head injuries two days later in hospital.<\/p>\n

The car wrapped around a pole, causing a power outage. The damage was so bad it took emergency services nearly three hours to extract the occupants.<\/p>\n

Mathewson was taken to hospital and tested for drugs, returning a high reading for MDMA (ecstasy) <\/a>\u2014 a synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen. His result: 260 nanograms of MDMA per millilitre of blood. The high-risk level for driving is 50 nanograms\/ml of blood.<\/p>\n

In victim statements for the court, Ella and Joshua\u2019s families spoke of their unbearable pain and grief. They were struggling to cope and felt robbed of their young loved ones.<\/p>\n

\"Ella-Rose'sElla-Rose’s parents, Robert and Kim Donker: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s ever going to get any easier. We\u2019re living our own sentence.\u201d Photo \/ Michael Cunningham<\/p>\n

Sentencing notes recorded a \u201chighly emotional\u201d restorative justice conference <\/a>was held in April between the previously close families.<\/p>\n

Mathewson\u2019s parents spoke about the impact on him and how he struggled daily. He had found it difficult to attend the conference, but wanted to apologise face to face.<\/p>\n

Ella\u2019s parents<\/a> said they could never forgive him. Joshua\u2019s mother told Mathewson he\u2019d been given a second chance and needed to make the most of it, \u201cto honour and respect Ella and Joshua\u201d.<\/p>\n

After the crash, Mathewson handed himself over to police. He\u2019d admitted being the driver and having \u201cstupidly\u201d consumed MDMA<\/a> at the party. He couldn\u2019t remember much, but recalled the car going sideways. He denied being aware that his licence was suspended (due to previous demerit points<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Pre-sentence reports spoke of Mathewson having no previous criminal history and being a valued road maintenance worker for Fulton Hogan. He didn\u2019t show pro-criminal or entitled beliefs and there was no pattern of antagonistic attitude towards others.<\/p>\n

He had taken MDMA <\/a>in the past, but had not consumed it or alcohol since the crash. He\u2019d grown up around a normalised culture of driving after consuming alcohol and drugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MDMAMDMA is a synthetic stimulant and hallucinogen also known as ecstasy. <\/p>\n

Now dealing with crippling depression and guilt, Mathewson had lost 35kg and couldn\u2019t get what happened out of his mind. He wanted to find the strength to share his story with youth to discourage them from making the same mistake he had.<\/p>\n

He regretted not having previously taken up a scholarship to play for a state rugby team in Australia that could have changed the trajectory of his life.<\/p>\n

Judge Pecotic<\/a> adopted the four-year sentence starting point submitted by the Crown and not challenged by the defence.<\/p>\n

Discounts were for guilty pleas (20 per cent); rehabilitative programmes done (10 per cent); and remorse, previous good character, young age, and present mental health issues (each 5 per cent).<\/p>\n

The reductions halved the sentence to 24 months \u2014 the outer limit for conversion to home detention<\/a>, which the judge said was appropriate as the least restrictive sentence. Mathewson\u2019s rehabilitative needs would also be more likely to be addressed in the community, where he had family support.<\/p>\n

The judge noted Mathewson would no doubt punish himself for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

Ella\u2019s father, Robert Donker, said the sentence didn\u2019t seem like any real consequence for someone who\u2019d killed two people.<\/p>\n

He knew why the courts tried not to jail young people \u2014 because of the risk it could turn them into criminals \u2014 however, there needed to be a stronger penalty than 12 months\u2019 home detention to adequately deter teen drivers from taking the risks in which they were killing their friends.<\/p>\n

Fatal incidents involving young, impaired drivers had become a regular thing and were on the rise, Donker said.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t know what the answer was, but sentencing had to be reviewed. He noted the maximum penalty for Mathewson\u2019s offences was up to 10 years\u2019 imprisonment, yet the starting point imposed was only four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you [offenders] have to do to get a higher starting point \u2014 kill a busload of people twice?\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed \u201cthe whole system is for offenders and concentrated on them and \u2018cos the victims aren\u2019t here anymore, they don\u2019t seem to matter\u201d.<\/p>\n

Donker said due to his ongoing grief, he still wasn\u2019t fully back at work. And his wife struggled every day too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s ever going to get any easier. We\u2019re living our own sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ella-Rose Donker \u2014 a former Whangarei Girls\u2019 High School student \u2014 and Joshua Oliver Dobson \u2014 a shearer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,45,53,50,43,49,51,52,48,46,47,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-44","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-austrlia","10":"tag-crashed","11":"tag-detention","12":"tag-donker","13":"tag-driver","14":"tag-ellarose","15":"tag-gets","16":"tag-home","17":"tag-including","18":"tag-killing","19":"tag-two","20":"tag-who"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","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=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}