Jail time reduced for driver who killed four children in Oatlands crash

The jail time for a drunk driver who hit and killed four children as they walked to get ice cream in Sydney's north-west has been reduced.

Samuel Davidson was drunk and affected by drugs while travelling 133km/h in a 50km/h zone when he ploughed into a group of seven children as they were walking and riding bikes on the footpath in Oatlands in 2020.

Abdallah siblings Antony, Angelina and Sienna, along with their cousin Veronique Sakr, were killed.

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Davidson pleaded guilty to a raft of charges including four counts of manslaughter.

Last year, he was sentenced to a minimum of 21 years in jail.

His maximum sentence was set at 28 years, with a parole period of seven years.

Davidson appealed the sentence on the grounds it was "manifestly excessive" and that the sentencing judge mistakenly found there was "no causal link" between his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the crime.

Justice Paul Le Gay Brereton did not uphold that there was a link between Davidson's ADHD and the crime but he found it was relevant to his "subjective case".

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Brereton also said due to the publicity of the case and the "risk of being killed by other inmates in mainstream custody", Davidson had been placed in segregation for the first 11 months of his sentence.

He found Davidson's jail time will be more "onerous" due to his ADHD and the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also upheld the previous sentence was "unreasonable or plainly unjust".

"His one act of criminally negligent driving had catastrophic consequences," Brereton said in his judgement.

"It was important to have regard to all of those consequences and the life lost in each case when arriving at an aggregate sentence; but it seems to me that it is also important to consider that it was the one criminal act which caused so much harm.

"The applicant did not 'embark upon a deliberate series of discrete offences'."

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Brereton has resentenced Davidson to a minimum of 15 years in prison.

His maximum sentence was set at 20 years in jail with a parole period of five years.

"I am satisfied that the sentence I would impose acknowledges the dignity of each child who was killed by the applicant's conduct," the judgement read.

Veronique's mother Bridget Sakr said today's resentencing was "unjust".

"No punishment could serve the devastation the driver did to our children and families," she said.

"I don't know how anybody could put a price on someone's life, especially the lives of four children who were killed, whereby 3.75 years per child is the value that has been placed as a punishment for the driver.

"The wounds never close but this puts salt on the wounds and it stings."