Former Collingwood player to spend more than a decade in jail after killing two women in WA crash

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Former Collingwood Magpies player Shannon Cox has been jailed for more than a decade over a head-on crash he caused while coming down off meth that killed two elderly women in country Western Australia.

Cox, 39, was sentenced in the WA Supreme Court on Wednesday via video link from Greenough Prison in the state’s mid west.

Thelma Clausen and Coral Seinor from Jurien Bay were killed in the crash.

The court was full of friends and family of Thelma Clausen and Coral Seinor as Prosecutor Michael Cvetkoski laid out the facts of the crash in June last year.

The court heard Clausen, 82, and Seinor, 83, were driving to a Country Women’s Association event in Badgingarra in June 2024 while Cox was driving in the opposite direction.

Cox had taken meth two days before, and was driving his 12-year-old daughter on the Brand Highway.

The women had been driving behind a truck towing a trailer just before 9am when Cox fell into a “micro sleep”, drifting onto the wrong side of the road, which caused the truck driver to manoeuvre to avoid a crash.

Cox’s car clipped the trailer twice, spun, then crashed head-on into the women’s car.

Both women were seriously injured and died at the scene.

Cvetkoski told the court it was not the first time Cox had driven on WA roads with meth in his system, having previously offended twice before. He was on a community-based order at the time of the crash.

When Cox was treated at hospital after the crash, he recorded 0.77mg per litre of meth in his system and still appeared to be fatigued, Cvetkoksi told the court, due to the “second phase of intoxication”. Cox later pleaded guilty to charges arising from the crash.

During sentencing, Judge Stephen Lemonis said he understood the heartbreaking grief of the women’s families.

“The community has been deprived of having such wonderful people in it,” he said.

He sentenced Cox to a total of 10½ years jail, with eligibility for parole after serving at least 8½ years.

Coral Seinor was remembered as the heart of her family.

From the moment he is released, Cox will also be subject to a four-year driving ban.

The women’s daughters also gave victim impact statements in court, speaking about the pair’s sixty-year long friendship that had culminated in the creation of the CWA Jurien Bay branch.

Clausen’s daughter Leanne told the court she spoke to her mother on the morning of the crash, and told her to text her when she arrived at the event in Badgingarra.

She said she became increasingly concerned throughout the day when she didn’t hear from her mother, and only found out about the crash when she saw it on the news that evening.

She told the court one of the most devastating events of the day was telling her elderly father, who had been married to her mother for 60 years, what had happened.

“He misses her constantly,” she said.

“Mum was the most selfless, kind-hearted and community-driven woman … she had a gift for everything she touched.”

“How could someone take drugs and destroy two innocent lives and then show no remorse?”

She said it was particularly frustrating Cox had gone on to breach bail, “live freely” for six months and take drugs after the crash.

Seinor’s daughter Suzanne also gave her own statement about her mother’s death.

“You chose to drive a car with drugs in your system. That choice took two lives that were not yours to take,” she said.

A booklet for the service remembering the women.

Suzanne said she had built a unit at the back of her home for her mother, who had recently moved down to Perth.

“She deserved something lovely … I now tend the garden mum planted but never got to see grow. If I keep the plants alive it feels like part of her is still alive too.

“To you, she was just some old lady. To me, she was my mum, my friend, my confidant.

“I and my family no longer have access to a mum hug that makes us feel special.

“Coral Anne was our mum, our nanna, she was a sister, an aunty, she was a cousin, she was a friend. She loved us as much as we all loved her. Now we don’t have her any more.”

Cox’s lawyer Paul Holmes requested an adjournment when his client became emotional following the two women’s victim impact statements.

During his submissions, Holmes said Cox had begun taking meth at 13 years old, and he had lived a difficult life.

He said the incident took place on a day Cox was due to pick up his partner from prison, and while he accepted he should not have been driving, he had been “eager to have his family back together”.

Holmes said Cox was remorseful, and “terribly sorry” for the victims.

The court was told Cox played for the Collingwood Football Club between 2006 and 2009, but left the club due to a drinking problem.

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