British backpacker jailed for drink-drive e-scooter death
- - British backpacker jailed for drink-drive e-scooter death
Our Foreign StaffDecember 11, 2025 at 11:21 PM
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Credit: Perth District Court
A British backpacker was sentenced to four years in prison after she hit and killed a man while riding an e-scooter drunk in Australia earlier this year.
Alicia Kemp, a 25-year-old criminology graduate, was driving between 12 and 15 mph – the maximum speed of the scooter – when she hit 51-year-old Thanh Phan in Perth, Western Australia.
Mr Phan, a father-of-two, hit his head on the pavement and died two days later in hospital from a brain bleed.
One of Kemp’s friends, who was on the back of the e-scooter, fractured her skull and broke her nose during the crash, but survived the injuries.
Kemp had been drinking with friends all afternoon and had an alcohol level of 0.185, more than three times the legal limit.
Thanh Phan hit his head on the pavement causing a bleed on the brain
CCTV footage from moments before the crash shows Kemp and her friend stumbling around on the pavement, struggling to keep their balance before they got on the e-scooter.
The two girls appeared to be heavily intoxicated and initially fell off the back of the vehicle when they first climbed on. The footage shows them speeding on the pavement, at one point barely missing a woman who jumped out of the way to avoid being hit.
Kemp was in Australia on a working holiday visa when the incident occurred. She was backpacking around south-east Asia before she arrived in Australia.
Alicia Kemp was sentenced to four years in prison - TikTok
She had volunteered at an animal shelter in the Philippines and worked as an English teacher in Vietnam, but otherwise she was a “digital nomad” on a “career break”, according to her LinkedIn profile.
When she first arrived in Australia she worked as an au pair and then began working at Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub in Perth.
Her sentence will be backdated to June 1 and she will be eligible for parole after two years.
“You, Miss Kemp, are the cautionary tale,” Judge Wendy Hughes said at Kemp’s sentencing.
She added: “E-scooters are not toys… if you drive while drunk at speed with a passenger without due care or attention and break the rules, that is not an accident.”
Mr Phan’s wife, Loan Lee, did not attend the sentencing hearing, but her victim-impact statement was read out in court.
She described her husband as the “backbone” of the family and said that “his absence leaves me feeling exposed and isolated”.
She also said that she worries for their two sons, both of whom are autistic and have not been able to cope with their father’s death.
She added: “The pain of watching someone wait for someone who will never return is indescribable.”
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Source: “AOL Breaking”
