A magistrate has described the death of a Sydney preschooler who was hit by a car as a "tragic accident" as he cleared the driver of the charges against her.
Lidija Sutevska fatally struck five-year-old Kevin Quintal as he was on his way to kindergarten at a school in Kingsgrove with his mother Marilyn last December.
She sat in silence and appeared to blink back tears in Sutherland Local Court on Wednesday as Magistrate Michael Connell found her not guilty of negligent driving occasioning death.
"What happened, in my view, was a series of unfortunate events," Mr Connell said.
Ms Sutevska did not speak to reporters as she hurried away from the court room but her husband said there "no winners".
Her solicitor Mark Stenberg told media outside court he had passed on her condolences to the grieving family soon after the accident.
Mr Stenberg said Ms Sutevska had "been through hell".
"There are no winners, there are just victims," he said.
"She's got kids of her own, she hasn't slept a whole night since this happened.
"It's cost her a lot. She'll never forget it.
"It changed her life.
"I've been driving for 49 years, if I'd been in that intersection driving that car it would have happened to me as well."
The prosecution had accused Ms Sutevska of failing to keep a proper lookout when she pulled away from the kerb at the corner of Vivienne Street and Kingsgrove Road, Kingsgrove, in Sydney's south.
But Mr Connell said he accepted her evidence that she had seen Mrs Quintal standing on the footpath with Kevin, two other children and a pram, but did not expect them to walk out onto the road in front of her.
He said forensic evidence suggested Ms Sutevska's vehicle rolled less than two metres in about two seconds before it fatally struck Kevin.
She never saw the child out of the corner of her eye and didn't realise her car had a blindspot, Mr Connell said.
Instead, she had taken reasonable, prudent action to avoid an accident and was looking to her right for oncoming traffic at the moment she released the brakes.
"Ms Sutevska determined in her own mind that the family were waiting to cross the road, and that the family would continue to wait," he said.
"That was a reasonable conclusion to draw."
In hindsight, he said, it was obvious there were many factors that led to Kevin's death - including "the decision to cross the road by Mrs Quintal".
She had told police she didn't walk around behind the Audi before crossing the road because her pram was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre.
Mrs Quintal sobbed as she left the court room and did not speak to reporters.
Kevin's aunt Otilia told reporters the family had hoped for a negligent driving conviction but never wanted Ms Sutevska to serve time.
"That's not the type of people that we are. We know that it was an accident," she said.
"We didn't expect the lady to go to jail. No one gets out of their house on a daily basis and thinks `oh yeah, I'm going to kill someone'.
"We feel for everyone."
She said Kevin would "be in our hearts forever".
