A judge who warned Rohan Dennis he could expect to be jailed if he drove while disqualified has recused himself from sentencing the Olympic cyclist for breaching the ban.
Dennis, 36, was given a suspended 17-month jail term and banned from driving for five years in 2025.
It followed a guilty plea over the events leading up to the death of his Olympian wife, Melissa Hoskins.
Dennis was caught driving while disqualified with two children as passengers on June 11.
That offence - and the associated offence of breach of bond - landed him before Judge Ian Press, the same judge who sentenced him in May 2025.
Dennis’s lawyers submitted that Judge Press should recuse himself on the basis of apprehended bias, after the judge warned Dennis during sentencing there was a “real expectation” he would be jailed if he breached the bond.
In written reasons published by the SA District Court on Wednesday, Judge Press said the test was whether a fair-minded lay observer might reasonably think he might not bring an impartial and unprejudiced mind to the case.
“The test gives effect to the requirement that justice should both be done and be seen to be done,” he wrote.
Judge Press accepted that an observer might think he had prejudged the issue, and had “a closed mind as to what should occur”.
“I also accept that the informed lay observer might think that I might now feel some pressure or obligation, consciously or subconsciously, to imprison a defendant because that is what I told him would happen,” he said.
This was incompatible with the impartiality and neutrality expected of a judicial officer.
“On that basis, I accept that I must recuse myself,” he wrote.
The maximum penalty for driving while disqualified is 12 months in prison.
Dennis could also potentially face 17 months in jail for breaching his good behaviour bond.
Hoskins, herself an Olympian and world champion cyclist, was struck by her husband’s vehicle near their home at Medindie, in Adelaide’s inner north, on December 30, 2023.
The 32-year-old suffered serious injuries and died in Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Dennis returns to court on November 13 for arraignment with a different judge.
