Evie Butterworth: Drug driver who killed Abbey Sheriff in Baldivis crash jailed for nine-and-a-half years

A driver who killed a 21-year-old woman in a high-speed drug-fuelled crash in Perth’s south has been jailed for nine-and-a-half years. Evie Lyn Butterworth had taken methamphetamine, cocaine and cannabis when she smashed into Abbey Rose Sheriff’s Nissan X-Trail at the Mundijong-Kulija Road freeway on-ramp in Baldivis on the night of January 11 last year. The 30-year-old had been captured on camera earlier, and from that, her average speed in the minutes before the crash was calculated as being 147km/h. The impact caused Ms Sheriff’s vehicle to spin out of control and roll several times before eventually landing 94 metres away. Other road users stopped when they saw debris and smoke, and Butterworth told some of them that Ms Sheriff had started to change lanes and side-swiped her vehicle, then drove off in a “hit and run”. She also told paramedics she was driving at 120km/h in the 100km/h zone and had not taken drugs. Mr Sheriff was breathing when two bystanders found her vehicle on its side on a cycle path, but by the time they had crawled inside through the boot, she was dead. Butterworth made no admissions to police but the WA Supreme Court was told on Thursday that she had expressed shock and fear when told at the scene that the other car had crashed. Butterworth’s defence lawyer Ashleigh Antoine said her client now accepted how the tragedy unfolded and the remarks she made to paramedics did not detract from her deep remorse. Justice Alain Musikanth said Butterworth’s conduct that night was “extremely dangerous”, with “complete disregard for other road users”. “It was criminal negligence of a high order,” he said. Justice Musikanth noted a handwritten letter of apology Butterworth sent to Ms Sheriff’s parents was just before her sentencing for manslaughter. He accepted she was genuinely sorry but Julie and Darren Sheriff did not, given the timing. “There’s no remorse,” Ms Sheriff told reporters outside court. The couple said they were “somewhat content” with the sentence, which was “appropriate” and close to what they had called for. But it had been “a long time coming”, with Butterworth finally pleading guilty to manslaughter in May this year, when a charge of driving under the influence of drugs was dropped under a plea deal. And having lost their only child - the young woman they called their “beautiful angel” - their lives were “forever changed”. “The time is never enough,” Ms Sheriff said. The couple have donated their daughter’s trashed car to the RAC for a forthcoming road safety campaign. “Because you hear a lot about drink driving, but never about drug use and what it can do to the families and people that are left behind,” Ms Sheriff said, unable to hold back tears. Their daughter was on her way from their Meadow Springs home to support a distressed friend in Armadale, using a route she regularly took to her job at Dome Cafe in Kwinana. Butterworth had taken meth with a friend in Wellard and was driving to see another mate in Bunbury before changing her mind and spending an hour in Pinjarra. She then suddenly became anxious to head back to Bayswater, where she lived with her 10-year-old daughter and parents. Justice Musikanth said the risk of harm from driving so far at high speeds while addled by drugs, which Butterworth had consciously decided to do, was “all but inevitable”. The court was told she had previously been fined for drug driving. Butterworth will be eligible for parole after serving seven-and-a-half years and will be disqualified from holding a driver’s licence for a decade after release.