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A drunk driver killed three of Leila Abdallah's children. She just made him an offer.

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In February 2020, Danny and Leila Abdallah's world was changed in a single moment. A drunk driver took the lives of three of their children and their niece.

Antony Abdallah, 13, his sisters Angelina, 12, and Sienna, 8, and their 11-year-old cousin Veronique Sakr, were simply walking to the shops for ice cream in Oatlands alongside three other children. It was still light, the kids were excited, and it should have been just another ordinary evening.

Instead, Samuel William Davidson — drunk, drugged and speeding — ran a red light before his 4WD mounted the footpath and struck the group of children. Four young lives were gone in an instant.

The three other children were injured, with one suffering permanent brain damage.

Davidson pleaded guilty to four counts of manslaughter. He was initially sentenced to 28 years with a non-parole period of 21 years, later reduced to 20 years with 15 years non-parole.

More than five years later, Danny did something incredible. He sat down face-to-face with the man who killed his children.

Now, Leila has shared her own message, offering to welcome Davidson into her home.

The Oatlands crash victims.The Oatlands crash victims, Antony, 13, his sisters Angelina, 12, and Sienna, 8, and their 11-year-old cousin Veronique Sakr. Image: Facebook.

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Since the tragedy, Danny has been meeting with Davidson at the maximum-security prison where he is serving his sentence.

One of those visits was filmed for a 7NEWS Spotlight exclusive on Sunday night.

Just months after losing their children, Danny and Leila had already publicly forgiven Davidson. But now, he's has gone even further.

Danny says he'd rather see Davidson freed than serve his full sentence.

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"If it was up to me, I'd bring him out tomorrow. I know the guy," he told Spotlight.

"Justice is to have my kids back. That's all. If you've got one day, or you've got a hundred years, it's not going to change how I feel."

Leila hopes to one day speak with Davidson, too, to tell him face-to-face she forgives him.

"We try our best not to hate. We get angry of course, we get upset. We are broken from what happened and we will never recover, but we try not to hold grudges, or hold onto hate," she told Newscorp on Monday.

"The story wasn't about us, it was really about the driver redeeming himself and taking full responsibility."

Leila and Danny have been able to forgive Davidson, but each day is still a struggle.

While the world looks at them as pillars of inspiration, Leila sees a bleaker truth.

"Deep down, Danny and I have no joy," she told Newscorp.

"I look at him as someone who is broken, who keeps going in his life and never gives up — that is how we look at each other."

Leila and Danny Abdallah with their family.Leila and Danny with their children. Image: Instagram/leila._abdallah.

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Danny described his first meeting with Davidson as "nerve-racking".

"It was a moment where I saw a person that's probably living with the pain of killing four children and giving one child brain damage," he said.

"Putting my parent hat aside, I could see that he's living in a place of guilt."

In Sunday night's Spotlight episode, Davidson reflected on that devastating day.

"I started drinking, and I can't remember much," he said.

"I'm not even sure why on Earth we were driving, I just know that we ran the red light," he said.

He described having "no control" of the car, taking a corner "so fast that not even a professional race car driver could have pulled that off in a professional car".

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"We had no control over the car."

Danny Abdallah sat down with Oatlands crash driver Samuel Davidson in prison.Danny and Samuel met face-to-face in prison. Image: YouTube/7NewsSpotlight.

Davidson can trace his reliance on alcohol back to when he was 19 and his older sister passed away unexpectedly from an infection following a lung transplant for cystic fibrosis.

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"I think it got me a lot worse than I thought," he told Spotlight.

Davidson's sister was "the best". When he lost her, the regular drinking began.

"I just hid behind the bottle. The drugs, they weren't a massive thing, I didn't do them very often," he said. "But the drink, that was my biggest problem. Binge drinking on the weekend."

Davidson believes he deserves every day of his sentence.

"I don't think I deserve that," he said of an early release.

"It was an accident and I didn't mean it, but I'm at fault and I've done that."

He called Danny "one in a million" and "an absolutely amazing man," saying: "Him even talking to me was a blessing. He keeps amazing me. He's just an incredible person and I just want to be everything like him."

Oatlands crash driver Samuel Davidson in his prison cell.Davidson spends up to 17 hours a day in his cell. Image: YouTube/7NewsSpotlight.

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Today, Davidson spends up to 17 hours a day in his cell, which he fastidiously keeps clean. They're locked in from the early afternoon until the next morning.

He's found Christian faith while in prison — inspired, he says, by the Abdallah family's ability to forgive.

When he first arrived in prison, Davidson was placed in protective custody, 7News reports, given the nature of his offence and the publicity on the case.

He still has a decade left of his sentence.

Davidson's message to Danny and his family has remained constant.

"Danny, I'm really sorry to you and your whole family for what I've done and all your friends, and I'm also sorry to all the emergency services that turned up on that day and had to deal with what they dealt with," he said.

"I'm deeply sorry. And I regret it for the rest of my life."

Feature image: AAP.

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