Fifteen years after Bryce Rolls, 8, was hit by a car and left to die at Kogarah, his mother continues to hope the driver will be brought to justice.
“We were told it was over and done with, and to take it on the chin,” Carolyn Rolls said.
“But, you keep on hoping that someone will be held accountable.
“Hopefully, someone will know something and come forward, and give us some closure.”
Five years after Bryce’s death in 2003, police named the chief suspect, but a coroner found there was insufficient evidence to take the matter further.
Bryce was the youngest of the Carolyn and Les Rolls’s five children.
About 5.40 on an afternoon in May, Bryce was crossing Harrow Road just 50 metres from his home when he was hit by a speeding car and dragged 10 metres.
The car was seen to brake briefly before speeding off.
Bryce suffered critical injuries and died four hours later in St George Hospital.
Bryce and his brother Jarrod, 11, had followed their father to their aunt’s home nearby.
Mr Rolls was going there to pick up some keys and did not know the boys were trailing well behind.
Bryce parents said at the time he was very “street wise” and had crossed that road “hundreds of times”.
The family remembered Bryce as a bright energetic boy who loved playing hockey, mucking around in the backyard and who found computers “boring”.
At the 2008 inquest, Homicide Squad detective Sergeant Robert Allison said Peter Graham, 35, formerly of Miranda, had been driving in Harrow Road and was using a mobile phone about the time Bryce was knocked down.
Detective Sergeant Allison said Mr Graham had admitted striking an object, but said it was a box and had given different accounts of what happened.
The court heard, after the crash, Mr Graham made 44 calls to his partner, Anne Piper, the owner of the car, compared to 19 in the previous seven days.
Deputy Coroner Paul MacMahon found there was insufficient evidence that Mr Graham was responsible.
Mr MacMahon said, while some of his behaviour was ‘‘suspicious’’, forensic evidence had been unable to trace his car to the crime scene and Bryce’s brother Jarrod had described the car as silver, whereas the vehicle driven by Mr Graham was white.
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