Nick Masters wins appeal against dangerous driving causing death conviction, sentence quashed mental health grounds

A North Coast man who had paranoid delusions that the Bandidos bikie gang were after him has won his appeal against a dangerous driving causing death conviction after a crash which claimed the life of a Grafton legend. Read why.

The Supreme Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

A North Coast man has successfully appealed his convictions and sentence, with his delusions that the Bandidos were after him proving crucial.

His win in the Court of Criminal Appeal last week quashes two dangerous driving convictions recorded in the District Court in 2020, including a charge of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm.

Nick Masters was found guilty on both charges and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three years to be served by way of an intensive correction order.

In September 2017, Masters was driving on Hastings River Drive in Port Macquarie when his Nissan Pathfinder crossed to the wrong side of the road and collided at speed with the front of a Ford Territory, killing well-known Grafton man Peter Ashenden at the scene and leaving his wife Rebecca with a fractured sternum.

Mr Ashenden was the Clarence Valley Council’s senior design engineer for more than a decade, and was heavily involved with several local clubs, serving as president of the Grafton High Rowing Club.

Grafton Rowing Club stalwart Peter Ashenden. Photo: contributed

In the initial trial, Masters relied on a defence of mental illness, with forensic psychiatrists concluding that he was suffering from schizophrenia manifesting in persecutory delusions.

Masters appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal, arguing that the trial judge was wrong in determining that he had not established his mental illness, and that the Court of Criminal Appeal should determine he was mentally ill at the time of the offending.

On appeal, the court found that the trial judge mistakenly applied the requirements of the mental illness defence available to Masters by requiring him to demonstrate that he was “disabled”, rather than having an inhibited ability to understand what he was doing was wrong.

The court heard Masters had significant delusions about the Bandidos pursuing him.

In a psychiatric interview from 2017, Masters disclosed that owing to his ex-wife being a bikie, he believed he had been followed since then by bikie gangs.

He believed that bikies had broken into his home and spiked his white wine, which he blamed for his ongoing heart palpitations.

Previously living in Queensland, Masters at one point stated he’d paid cash for a hired truck and drove to Coffs Harbour to purchase a ‘burner mobile’ (a cheap discardable phone) for the purpose of avoiding being tracked by bikies.

Masters in his psychiatric interviews also suspected treating doctors of being hired by bikies to induce a state of psychosis in order to persecute him.

The court heard a lengthy debate as to the reasoning for Masters’ speeding on the night of the incident, and whether this was also owing to delusions of being pursued by bikie gangs.

In an email to his father in the days leading up to the incident, Masters wrote “the bikies have finally identified themselves as the Bandidos.

“They have started to threaten a lot more obviously now.

“I am very worried about a ‘plant’ happening next, something will be found in the flat or the car!”

The Court of Criminal Appeal allowed the appeal, and quashed the convictions recorded in July 2020, finding the acts proven against Masters but not holding him criminally responsible.

He was discharged on the condition that he continues a community treatment order and persists with prescribed medication.