Man facing up to 20 years in jail after ATV death on farm

A man who crashed an ATV buggy with seven unrestrained children on board, killing one, has pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing death. 

It was a play date that turned into a deadly nightmare. Within 20 minutes of leaving her six-year-old daughter Olivia at a friend's house, Yana Stevens received the call every parent dreads.

She was told Olivia had been critically injured and was being flown to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne for treatment.

Olivia, and six other children, all under 10, were passengers on an all-terrain vehicle when it rolled over at a farm in Rosedale, in Victoria's Gippsland region. 

The September 2021 crash resulted in Olivia's death. The six others, including the driver Damien Gibson's five children, survived. 

Gibson on Monday pleaded guilty in the County Court to culpable driving causing death over the incident. His daughter was Olivia's best friend.

The 36-year-old was not required to speak during Monday afternoon's hearing at Morwell, but did submit to the court a written apology addressed to Olivia's family. 

Prosecutor Charlotte Duckett said Gibson had ignored multiple warnings in the ATV buggy's instruction manual and numerous others plastered inside the buggy's cabin. 

Those warnings included '"do not allow reckless driving", "do not exceed seating capacity of four occupants", "fasten seatbelts" and morbidly '"rollovers have caused severe injuries or even death".

Ms Duckett said when Ms Steven's left her daughter with Gibson and his wife, she was playing happily in the family's pool.

He never asked Ms Stevens' permission to take Olivia for a ride in the buggy and had made the decision to drive it with seven unrestrained, under-aged passengers on board.

"It's certainly obvious that he put people at risk, children at risk," she said. "It's not a miscalculation, its a decision he made."

Reading a statement to the court, an emotional Ms Stevens described the moment she received the call that Olivia had been in an accident.

"My world came crashing down on me ... I thought I was having a heart attack," she told the court.

"Then they took us to the bereavement room, where we got to spend hours with her - we touched her hair, her little fingers that held my hand as she fell asleep every night, her beautiful face but there were no emotions on it, nothing but her cold body. Karma will catch you eventually."

Gibson's lawyer, Peter Morrissey, said his client was "very sorry".

"He will be sorry til the day he dies ... he's now going to prison. He's now going to pay a heavy price, and his family is paying a very heavy price.

"The offence itself was not an offence of any malice, his own kids were on that vehicle and as Yana Stevens pointed out there's a terrible randomness of who was killed in the end."

Pleading guilty to the charge of culpable driving causing death means Gibson will serve some time in jail.

The maximum penalty he could receive is 20 years, but the standard sentence for such a crime usually falls around eight years' incarceration.

He is expected to be sentenced at a hearing in Melbourne's County Court on October 3.