'Frank killed my grandfather': Charity founder speaks out after A Current Affair exposes repeat drunk driver

“Frank killed my grandfather and injured my grandmother when he was 17.”

This was the tweet from Annabelle Chauncy to A Current Affair about repeat Wollongong drunk driver Frank Rafter as our story went to air.

While covering Rafter’s littered driving history, I visited Wollongong court to hear this man’s appeal against a four-month jail term for blowing three times the limit and doing a burnout just seconds before his girlfriend either leapt or fell from his car.

Aware that Rafter had hit and killed someone whilst drunk behind the wheel at the age of 17 in 1986, I approached the now 47-year-old about his driving record before his court appearance and asked him if it would take another death for him to learn his lesson.

I wish I’d met Annabelle and got to know more about her grandfather before I approached Rafter but the world of daily current affairs requires fast turnarounds and we simply didn’t have the time or resources to find a member of the victim’s family from an accident that happened over 30 years ago.

CEO of the School for Life Foundation helping kids in Uganda, Annabelle Chauncy appears to have a big heart. It’s a trait that runs in her family no doubt.

Annabelle’s grandfather was taken too soon, killed by a drunk driver and Frank Rafter spent time behind bars for that act of stupidity.

But two other drink-driving convictions before his latest alarming indiscretion in his middle-aged years is a frightening reality check that some people just don’t learn.