By Stephanie Gardiner

Rian Strathdee was a happy little boy, who had just learnt to ride a bike and was excited to show his cousins his new skill.

But the six-year-old was killed on the way to his cousins’ Canberra house, when a truck driver rear-ended his family’s car on the Hume Highway southwest of Sydney on November 26, 2004.

The driver of the truck, Allan Michael Dyson, left the scene of the crash, only to be arrested in Queensland in October 2022.

Nearly 20 years to the day of the collision, Dyson was on Friday sentenced to at least three years’ jail, with a maximum term of five years and six months.

A jury in August found the 61-year-old guilty of dangerous driving occasioning death and two counts of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm related to injuries to Rian’s father and brother.

NSW District Court Judge Ross Hudson found Dyson had time to slow down or change lanes to avoid the Subaru, which had merged on to the highway from a slip lane at the exit of a service station.

But he could not find beyond reasonable doubt that Dyson was speeding.

“It is important to note at the outset that cases of this type are notoriously difficult for sentencing courts – there can be no winner,” Judge Hudson said.

“The sentence imposed does not and cannot measure the value of Rian Strathdee’s life or the injuries sustained.”

The judge emphasised the sole issue at Dyson’s trial was whether he was driving dangerously.

A witness told the court he heard Dyson on a radio saying words like: “I’ll teach these cs, I’ve pushed them off the fing road.”

The comments showed Dyson knew there was a collision when he drove away, but they could not be used to measure his moral culpability under the legal framework of the charges, the judge said.

Ahead of sentencing, Dyson told a psychologist he thought the truck’s contact with the Subaru – driven by the boy’s mother Jasmine Payget – was minimal.

“It was only a tap, I panicked,” Dyson said, according to the psychologist’s report read to court.

Dyson, whose criminal record included drug-affected driving in the years after the crash, had shown no remorse or contrition, the judge said.

A spokeswoman for the family said they accepted the sentence, but the long wait for justice had taken a toll.

At an earlier hearing, Ms Payget said Dyson’s actions had left the family in limbo for 20 years.

“Hit-and-run crashes are particularly cruel for victims, adding another layer of distress to the enormous grief from the death of our child,” she said.

His father Laurie Strathdee, who broke his neck in the crash, said Rian was “full of life”.

“We miss him dearly, he would be a lovely young man,” Mr Strathdee told the court at the earlier hearing.

With time already served, Dyson will be eligible for parole in October 2025.