Aaron Vidal NSW cop death: Tommy Balla sentence appeal dismissed

An appeal against a sentence given to a NSW man who avoided jail time after he ran a red light and killed an off-duty cop has been dismissed.

Tommy Balla, 38, was on a phone call via his car’s Bluetooth wireless system when he turned right two seconds after a traffic arrow had flashed red, smashing into Constable Aaron Vidal’s oncoming motorbike at a busy Rouse Hill intersection in June 2020.

NSW District Court judge Stephen Hanley last August sentenced Balla to a two-year intensive corrections order, to be served as home detention, after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death.

The NSW Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions argued this sentence was “manifestly inadequate”.

It wanted the punishment reviewed on the grounds Mr Balla’s crash was not an accident, but rather a deliberate running of a red light.

But Justice Stephen Rotham dismissed the appeal in a 40 second hearing at the Supreme Court of NSW on Thursday.

“The Crown appeal is dismissed,” he told the court.

Justice Rotham viewed the dashcam footage of the incident “a number of times” before making his judgment and deemed Mr Balla had misjudged the time he had to make the right-hand turn.

“His inattention even on the Crown case, is confined to the two seconds that the light was red,” he wrote in a court ruling published after Thursday’s brief hearing.

“Ordinarily, it takes at least one second to react to a situation while driving.

“This case, if the Crown analysis were correct, is a tragic lesson for those who decide to travel through amber lights, when they have time to stop.”

Balla’s charge had carried a maximum of 10 years in jail as a potential punishment, but Judge Hanley – last August – found the father of two was unlikely to reoffend and was remorseful for what he had done.

The court heard Mr Balla felt especially guilty when he spent time with his young family, and he would think of Constable Vidal.

The 28-year-old police officer, whose father is a chief inspector with NSW Police, died before his baby boy Etzio was born in January this year.

“My life without Aaron is excruciating,” Constable Vidal’s partner, Jessica Loh, previously told a court.

“I miss our intimacy and struggle with the concept of not having a husband to go home to.

“If not for the actions of the defendant, Aaron would be with me. We would be sitting at home with our baby Etzio together.”

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