Geraldton crash survivor Lily Davis believes 12 months jail isn’t enough for serial road menace Joshua Bonjour

A Geraldton woman, who was forced to relearn how to walk after a drunk driver crashed the car she was a passenger in, is gobsmacked and outraged the man responsible has walked away with just 12 months jail for adding to his atrocious record. Serial road menace Joshua Bonjour – whose shocking driving record includes killing one girl in a crash and leaving another for dead — has found himself back behind bars for his “persistent and blatant disregard” for the law. The 30-year-old was on Thursday jailed for 12 months and banned from getting behind the wheel again for a whopping 12.75 years after he was caught driving while suspended a staggering 17 times. Bonjour had been banned from getting behind a wheel for 30 months after his last stint in jail over the crash that left Geraldton apprentice hairdresser Lily Davis so badly injured she had to learn how to walk again. He had been out of prison less than a year when police, after receiving a tip off, began monitoring him in 2021. Ms Davis, now 29, told the Geraldton Guardian that 12 months jail time would not be enough to discourage Bonjour from reoffending or causing further damage. In 2014, Bonjour was jailed for driving 18-year-old Jodie Maree Worthington to her death in 2012 when she was a passenger on a quad bike in Lancelin. Bonjour was found guilty and jailed for four years, but just months after he was let out on parole, another accident occurred. Swerving in and out of traffic at high speeds in September 2018 with Ms Davis as a passenger, Bonjour smashed his car into a light pole on Roe Highway in Perth. Bonjour fled the scene, leaving Ms Davis trapped inside the wrecked car. Ms Davis, now a mother of two, said she could not justify how Bonjour was penalised and was shocked to discover he was still on the road with a suspended licence. “Honestly my jaw dropped to the floor, I couldn’t believe that he was still driving,” she said. Ms Davis said Bonjour was introduced to her through a friend and she had only met him three times prior, unaware of his driving history until police advised her after the accident in hospital. The crash caused neurogenic shock to Ms Davis’ spine, she was unable to walk for some time and required years of rehabilitation to recover. “I had very restricted movement, soft tissue damage, the nerves in my left side were squashed and the nervous system was in shock,” Ms Davis said. “It was good and it was bad — it was good because I had cortisone injections but didn’t require surgery, which is really lucky.” Since the accident, Ms Davis said she had her good and bad days, and still received treatment for her back. Just recently, she has joined community sport again, and continues to see a physiologist and chiropractor once every few months. “I’m back playing netball and I’m trying footy, but I’m worried about being tackled the wrong way,” she said. Serial driving menace jailed again for driving while suspended a staggering 17 times Ms Davis said she wished Bonjour was behind bars for longer and the justice system would revoke his licence permanently. “It’s just unbelievable, he got 12 months for the car accident that I was involved in,” she said. “12 months is obviously not doing anything for him, so I think they should be handing him a lot more. “It’s hard to describe it in words, knowing he’s not learning and wondering what it’s going to take. “Ban his licence, don’t even give him the chance to hold a licence.” Ms Davis said when she fell pregnant with her eldest son Kingsley — not long after the accident — she was finalising insurance documents and the growing baby was excruciating. “It was a traumatic pregnancy, from 17 weeks I was in so much pain I could barely walk at some points,” she said. Ms Davis said the accident opened her eyes to how quickly things could go wrong when you had no control. “I wish I’d listened to my parents when I was younger and never got in the car with an intoxicated driver,” she said. “It definitely changed my life, probably for the better, I wasn’t on a bad path but I was young and living life with no responsibilities.”