About a minute after Jaycob Issac Gemza fatally struck 14-year-old Bryson Dimovski and continued driving, he briefly returned to the scene and saw the boy's electric scooter before he left again, a court has heard.
Gemza on Wednesday afternoon escaped being taken into custody, when the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions failed to convince Magistrate Janine Lacy it was inevitable he would be sentenced to jail for not helping Bryson.
It came after the 22-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to stop and assist after a vehicle impact causing death, and not guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death - driving in a dangerous manner, and a backup count of negligent driving occasioning death.
Gemza will appear in Newcastle District Court for arraignment on August 29 before facing a trial over the dangerous driving charge.
Bryson was riding his electric scooter on the shoulder of Macquarie Road, 800 metres north of the Medcalf Street intersection, at Warners Bay at 5.30pm on July 28 last year when Gemza struck him in a Ford Falcon.
His body was found on a grass verge several hours after family and friends started to look for him.
Gemza was arrested at home in the early hours of the following morning.
Bryson's family held a vigil on Sunday to mark a year since his death.
The court heard on Wednesday Gemza returned to the scene about a minute after he struck Bryson with the vehicle and looked around the area in the dark by the light of the torch on his phone.
Gemza's defence solicitor said he left the scene after he saw Bryson's scooter, but there was no suggestion he saw the young boy. However, she said he "ought to reasonably have known" he had at least seriously injured someone.
The court heard that Gemza told police in an interview he did not immediately call triple zero because he panicked.
The prosecution argued that Gemza's case of failing to stop was at the high end of the spectrum for this type of crime and that his failure to help or report the incident caused Bryson's parents - who reported him missing to police - "obvious unnecessary hardship and anguish".
"The accused returned to the scene and observed an item [the scooter] that would tend to suggest someone had been very seriously injured, then left the scene," said solicitor Max Dixon, for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Magistrate Lacy said she could not grant the application to revoke Gemza's bail because, after examining sentences for other comparable cases, it was not inevitable he would get jail time, despite her opinion that it was "highly likely".
"It is a serious example of failing to stop and assist," she said.
Magistrate Lacy said it was also a complicating factor that he had pleaded not guilty to the dangerous driving charge because he would not get a trial date in the district court until at least October 2025.
She said this meant, if his bail was revoked on Wednesday, there was a chance he would spend longer on remand than the non-parole periods handed out in comparable cases.
