A devastated mother has visited her son's grave every day since the brilliant economics tutor was run down by a garbage truck driver who moved his body before fleeing.
"This is the only way I can get close to my son now," Eileen Xie said in the NSW District Court in Sydney on Friday.
"My dear son left us a year and a half ago and our hearts are bleeding."
Tuiniua Fine, 53, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death, failing to stop and assist, and doing an act with the intention to pervert the course of justice.
The body of 21-year-old George Yuhan Lin was found on a footpath in Central Street in Sydney's CBD in the early hours of February 12, 2020.
Three hours later police stopped and arrested Fine in his truck at Kings Cross.
In her victim impact statement read at Fine's sentence hearing, Ms Xie said the family emigrated to Australia from China when her son was aged four.
"George loved this country so much, he loved the life, and loved his family and friends," she said.
"He was such an excellent and hardworking young man, his wonderful life was just beginning."
In just over a year after emigrating, her son was fluent in English and later attended James Ruse Agricultural HIgh School when he achieved a HSC score of 99.85
He helped other students, being "a kind young man who was happy to share his knowledge".
He obtained a double degree in law and economics at the University of Sydney and operated his own economics tuition business, which he felt was a meaningful job.
His economics teacher told his parents he had been "a very special student and person" who wanted economics to benefit society, not just something to make a few people rich.
He had planned to be a policymaker in Canberra so he could do something good not just take a corporate job.
Ms Xie said her son was considerate and respectful of his parents and on the last Father's Day before he died he took his father to a restaurant and gave him a pair of trousers.
He had joked "Dad I have better taste than you and I will buy your clothes in future".
Ms Xie said she wanted to ask the driver "do you know what you have done, because of your behaviour I lost our most precious son forever".
She intended to visit his grave for the rest of her life.
Instead of helping her son after hitting him, the driver had dragged him to the side of the road and drove away, continuing to work in an attempt to cover up his actions.
"The driver who killed my son have you ever imagined if this happened in your family and it was your child, your family member who was killed?"
The sentence hearing continues.
