After Craig O'Neill died in a crash caused by a negligent driver, his youngest daughter built a shrine to him so she would not forget what he looked like.
"No 10-year-old should have a shrine to their father in their room," the girl's mother told the ACT Supreme Court in a statement on Friday, June 12.
The 47-year-old dad of two died when a truck being driven by Sean Joshua Walton crashed into his motorbike in Holt on June 18, 2024.
In May 2026, Walton, aged in his mid-40s, was found guilty by a jury of negligent driving causing death. He was found not guilty of the more serious charge of culpable driving causing death.
Walton told police at the time that he saw a red car travelling in the opposite direction, indicating to turn left at an intersection, but he didn't see Mr O'Neill's motorbike before the crash.
A point of contention in the trial was where the red car and Mr O'Neill were positioned before the crash. This is set to be determined by Justice Peter Berman when Walton's sentence is handed down.
On Friday, the mother of the victim's daughters said in an impact statement that she had to "sit our children down and tell them he was dead".
"A member of our family is missing, taken from us because someone was too impatient ... [it was] a split-second decision with a catastrophic outcome," she said.
"While he lay dying on the road, [my daughters] were trying to ring him for their nightly phone call.
"[Walton's] actions that day took a huge, vibrant spark from the world that can never be returned."
Mr O'Neill's eldest daughter described him as "a big bear of a man" who drove a "really loud Harley-Davidson motorbike".
She recalled speaking to her father on the phone the day before the fatal crash, telling the court: "If I had known that was the last time I heard his voice, I would have tried to make that last for hours."
"I hope that [Walton] treasures the ability to [still be in his daughters' lives] ... Whatever he does next he does with my father's blood on his hands.
"I hope that he lives the life my dad no longer can."
The younger daughter told the court in her statement that she missed the sound of her father's voice, his laugh, smell and the "silly words he used to make up".
"I miss our holidays and how he never got to take my sister and I to the Great Barrier Reef like he promised," she said.
Defence barrister Kieran Ginges argued his client had offered to plead guilty to negligent driving before the trial which should allow him a significant sentence discount.
Mr Ginges said that Walton was "not a risk taker" and at the time of the crash "his daughters are in the car, he is not in a rush to go anywhere".
Justice Berman is set to hand down Walton's sentence later this month.
