- Sydney Roosters star Sandon Smith sentenced on Friday
- The 22-year-old pleaded guilty to a serious driving offense.
Sydney Roosters playmaker Sandon Smith escaped conviction after his careless driving caused him to leave a pedestrian with serious injuries that led to two of his toes being amputated.
Smith, 22, was given a two-year probation order on Friday after pleading guilty to careless driving causing grievous bodily harm.
The NRL player was remorseful and apologized several times in the nine months since the March 13 incident, his lawyer David Newham said.
“This was a terrible…freak accident which Mr Smith feels terrible about,” Mr Newham said outside Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court.
“There was no recklessness whatsoever and he apologized profusely to the gentleman who was seriously injured.”
Smith was heading to football training at Allianz Stadium in Sydney’s east, slowly pulling an Audi A5 out of a driveway to the Vaucluse house he was renting from a friend.
Sandon Smith appears outside a Sydney court on Friday, shortly before being sentenced after pleading guilty to careless driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.
The Sydney Roosters star (pictured playing last season) crashed his car into another vehicle, pinning a man’s foot to the ground.
His vision was obscured by a black-tinted Range Rover, a Pantech truck and a tree.
A Toyota Kluger traveling on Old South Head Road collided with his Audi, sending it into another car that pinned a man’s foot while he was removing his son from the back.
Newham told the court that Smith had technically failed to fulfill his responsibilities as a safe driver.
“In the real world, of course… he did what most people would do under these circumstances,” he said.
“He hasn’t bolted like a bat out of hell, for example,” Newham told the court.
Smith was collecting his thoughts after the crash when he heard the man screaming and went to help free him, Newham told the court.
Police prosecutor Adrian Walsh said it was admitted the incident was “a very unfortunate series of events”.
“However, those events will now have a significant and lasting adverse impact on the victim’s life,” Sgt Walsh told the court.
“He spent eight weeks in the hospital with many broken and fractured bones,” he said.
He lost two fingers and most of the feeling in his right foot, Sergeant Walsh added, handing the court a gruesome photograph of the man’s injuries, showing bones through an open wound from heel to toe. foot.
Smith (pictured after a match against Canberra) rushed to the man’s aid when he heard his screams after the crash on March 13 this year.
The court also received character references from Roosters president Nick Politis and head coach Trent Robinson.
Magistrate Scott Nash handed Smith a two-year probation order with no conviction recorded.
Smith was charged in September, days after the Roosters’ qualifying final loss to Penrith.
But the NRL’s integrity unit was not informed of the incident until the eve of Smith’s court hearing.
Smith figures to be a crucial part of the Roosters’ 2025 squad, set to take charge of the team’s attack following the departure of veteran playmaker Luke Keary and a long-term injury to regular halfback Sam Walker.
Already backed to start in the halves following Keary’s decision to retire from the NRL, his value increased when Walker ruptured his cruciate ligament in August.
Smith was the first player from the club’s Central Coast Pathways program to play in an NRL game for the Roosters when he debuted in June 2023, playing 15 games that year and appearing in 14 more during the 2024 campaign.