It was a Christmas dinner favourite that was never to be eaten.
As 18-year-old Jayden Pearce walked out of his family home that day in 2018, some of the last words he spoke to his mother were: "Don't eat my crackle."
This would be the last Christmas the Pearce family would celebrate all together and the precious crackle was frozen, never to be eaten.
Mr Pearce had met with his close friend Jackson Spratt and the pair were going to visit grandparents.
Mr Spratt was driving and Mr Pearce was in the passenger seat as they travelled north along Pipers River Road at Turners Marsh in Tasmania's north.
Elizabeth Ann Quill, 36, was travelling south along the same road.
Magistrate Simon Brown said Quill was driving to visit family for Christmas, "with her dog as her front-seat passenger beside her".
He told the court that Mr Spratt saw the other car driving towards him and he described it as cutting the corner.
"Hoping to avoid a front-on collision, he took evasive action," Magistrate Brown said.
Quill was driving on the wrong side of the road when she collided with the vehicle being driven by Mr Spratt.
She failed to take any evasive action.
In sentencing submissions, prosecutor Emily Stone said the crash had a "lasting impact on Mr Pearce's family and friends."
"This is a serious example of negligent driving causing death, with seemingly no awareness whatsoever," she said.
Defence Lawyer Alan Hensley told the court that Quill was "unable to come to terms with her role in the accident".
"She simply can't explain why she was in the wrong lane."
He said Quill's drug use did spike after the crash but she was currently not using illicit substances.
Quill watched on as Magistrate Brown sentenced her to three months in jail, suspended for two years if she does not commit any imprisonable offences.
She is currently disqualified from driving.
'They told us he was gone'
The prosecution read a victim impact statement from Lynette Pearce to the court, as she described the devastation of losing her youngest child.
Ms Pearce said the family had driven to the cemetery to visit the graves of their deceased grandparents on Christmas day.
"We didn't know Jayden would soon be there with his grandparents," the statement read.
Ms Pearce described her experience as she rushed to the Launceston General Hospital to see her son.
"They said Jayden had brain bleeding," she wrote.
Ms Pearce collapsed upon hearing this news and sat in the gutter outside the Emergency Department; Mr Pearce was then transported to the Royal Hobart Hospital.
She said the doctors advised the family to turn off the life support machine a couple of days later: "They told us he was gone."
Ms Pearce said her son suffered broken legs from the impact of hitting the dashboard, and to imagine what had happened to her little boy was devastating.
'There's no justice at all'
The prosecution also read a victim impact statement from Mr Spratt, describing the close and "basically inseparable" friendship he had shared with Mr Pearce.
After the crash, Mr Spratt was unable to work due to the deterioration of his mental health and he now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and panic attacks.
Mr Spratt said he usually becomes withdrawn, isolated and self-medicates during holidays such as Christmas.
A fight erupted on the street as Quill attempted to leave the court on Tuesday afternoon, with friends of Mr Pearce screaming abuse, spitting, and grabbing at the woman responsible for the death of their loved one.
Nikki Weaver said she had known Jayden since he was 11 years old.
"I really don't understand why she's not in jail, she killed someone, how has she not been put in jail?"
"There's no justice at all … Our family is never going to be the same again."
