Lynn Keyworth (right) celebrates Mother’s Day 2023 with her daughter, Grace Keyworth, and granddaughter, Annabelle Frawley. Photo: Keyworth family.
The family of a much-loved grandmother who died in a fatal car crash are devastated after losing “the heart of [their] family” and have spoken out about the sentence handed to the speeding driver who killed her.
Lynn Keyworth was driving along a dirt road north of Yass in NSW on 16 October 2023 when the then-33-year-old Mathew James Cole, also known as Matthew Webb, crashed his ute into her car.
He had been speeding at almost 120 km/h when he slid out of control for about 60 metres, crossed onto the wrong side of the road and hit her car, causing it to roll.
Ms Keyworth, 65, was killed instantly.
Earlier this week, Cole was sentenced to three years and four months’ jail with a non-parole period of two years and four months.
The sentencing judge, Judge Alister Abadee, noted Ms Keyworth’s tragic death had a significant impact on her large family.
“Mum was the heart of our family and we are so devastated she’s no longer with us due to the criminal acts of Mr Cole,” Ms Keyworth’s daughter, Grace Keyworth, told Region.
“The sentence he’s received seems so short for her golden years that he took away.
“Mum worked at ACT Health as a dental therapist for more than 20 years and in her retirement continued to treat clients at Weetangera Dental Clinic on weekends. She’s deeply missed.”
Canberra Health Services noted Ms Keyworth’s retirement in a social media post in 2019, saying the dental therapist had retired after 28 years.
Lynn Keyworth (fourth from right) celebrates her 65th birthday with her family, two weeks before the crash. Photo: Keyworth family.
Ms Keyworth’s family also released a statement saying they were devastated at the length of Cole’s sentence.
“While in our eyes, no sentence would ever be enough punishment for killing our beautiful Lynn, three years and four months seems vastly inadequate for the crime and the criminal history of the offender,” they said.
“Lynn was a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a wife, an aunt and a friend to many. She spent her life devoted to her family, her farm, her community and her dental therapy patients. She should still be with us.
“We are deeply hurt by her loss, and remain angry at the system that let a man with such a long criminal history be in the community on an intensive community corrections order at the time of the crash that took Lynn’s retirement away.”
Just two months before the crash, Cole was sentenced to an 18-month intensive corrections order, which is a type of community-based sentence, for a charge of reckless wounding in company.
Four days before the crash, he’d taken the drug ‘ice’.
While Cole remained in hospital for some time with his own injuries after the crash, he then committed the offence of driving with an illicit substance in his blood in December 2023.
He later admitted to a psychologist that he had been an ‘ice’ addict.
Ms Keyworth’s family said Cole’s criminal history, drug use and lack of compliance with prior court orders should have been taken more seriously and supervision should have been stronger.
“We are disgusted that just over two months after the crash that killed Lynn, the offender was back behind the wheel, caught driving under the influence of methamphetamine on another NSW country road,” they said.
“We implore the NSW Government to consider cases like ours in their response to the recent review of serious road crime offences report from the NSW Law Reform Commission.
“The laws need to be strengthened if this is the price for illegally taking a person’s life on our roads and to effectively deter others from doing the same.”
Cole can be released from custody in May 2027.
Original Article published by Albert McKnight on Region Canberra.
