A woman whose husband was killed by teenage joyriders in a hit-and-run blames herself for his death.
Daryl Reid, 48, was on his way to work when a car being driven by a 16-year-old crashed into his car at Narellan, southwest of Sydney, in October 2010.
His widow Lorraine Reid said she blamed herself for her husband's death because she'd gotten up that morning to scold him for singing too loudly to the cat before he went to work.
"I blame myself. If I hadn't got up ... he would not have been in that crash at that precise moment," she told Campbelltown District Court.
"That was the last time I saw (him) alive. The next time I saw him was in the mortuary."
She said she was haunted by nightmares of the father-of-two dying alone on the side of the road.
"We should've been 80 years old holding each other's hand," she said in her statement to the court.
In her own tearful statement, a teenage relative said her first birthday after the accident was one of the worst of her life.
"Instead of celebrating my sweet 16 I spent time in the cemetery," she said.
"He won't be at my wedding reception giving an embarrassing speech."
She said Mr Reid would always call her "princess" and would let her practise her make-up skills on him - even heading off to work one day with freshly-painted toenails that he'd forgotten she had done.
The driver, who cannot be named for legal reasons, hung his head as the family read their statements.
He had previously submitted a signed statement and confession to an inquest into Mr Reid's death.
Now 20, he has pleaded guilty to a number of charges including dangerous driving causing death and failing to stop.
He will be sentenced on March 20.
