Jeremy Price was on a lethal cocktail of drugs when he veered into another car, killing an elderly couple and leaving his own two-year-old son permanently disabled.

Now he has to live with this burden, a judge said in sentencing him to a minimum of four years in jail.

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Bernard Hayden, 79, and his wife Eileen, 72, were driving in Bolong on the New South Wales south coast at about lunchtime on April 24 last year when Price – who was on the drug “ice” – veered onto their side of the road and smashed into them.

Price’s car rotated and the Haydens were pushed back into trees.

Mr Hayden died at the scene, while his wife died two days later in hospital.

Price’s then two-year-old son Jake was admitted to hospital, where he stayed until November, and has been diagnosed with permanent paraplegia because of the accident.

He is wholly dependent on a wheelchair for mobility and needs constant bladder and bowel management.

Jake is still too young for doctors to fully assess the impact of his brain injury, Judge Ian McClintock told Sydney’s District Court on Friday.

The Hayden family have been left with profound feelings of grief and loss, while Jake and his mother Sarah O’Meara are living with its debilitating consequences.

“He may have fallen asleep or he may have remained conscious but unable to manage the vehicle. It hardly matters,” Judge McClintock said.

“He is responsible for the deaths of two people and his own son suffered catastrophic injuries and is permanently incapacitated.”

Judge McClintock accepted Price was remorseful as evidence in his early guilty pleas to a raft of charges, including two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death and one count of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.

“He has suffered consequences. The burden of knowing what he did to his own child is a form of punishment,” he said.

He will be eligible for parole in November 2018.

Jake’s mother Ms O’Meara cried after the sentence was handed down, telling reporters outside court that it was “grossly inadequate”.

“This man took away two people’s lives and seriously injured my son, and my son will never walk again, and he could be out in four years,” she said.

She said the challenges facing Jake will only increase as he ages.

“We have to explain all this to him and he is only four.”

– AAP