Dane Wheway: M1 Mt White Jeremy Harvey crash death trial starts
A driver who killed another motorist in a horror car crash, on the Central Coast, fled the scene before allegedly telling a friend ‘I think I might have killed someone’.
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Moments after his erratic driving allegedly caused a horrific fatal crash on the M1 motorway last year, Dane Wheway called a friend to say “I think I might have killed someone,” a court has heard.
Wheway is on trial for his role in the accident near Mt White on the Central Coast about 4.45pm on March 9, 2018, which claimed the life of 46-year-old Jeremy Harvey.
His black Ford Ranger and Mr Harvey’s Isuzu D-Max collided at high-speed as the 26-year-old allegedly changed lanes, knocking the victim’s ute into the path of a prime mover and semi-trailer.
Mr Harvey’s ute crashed into the two trucks, sending him into dense bushland as his vehicle struck “numerous trees” the court heard. He died at the scene.
Wyong resident Wheway has pleaded guilty to a dangerous driving occasioning death, but the Crown is pursuing a vehicular manslaughter charge.
On Monday a jury was played the recorded interview given at Wyong police station on the night of the crash, in which Wheway offered differing versions of the series of events that preceded it.
In the video played before Downing Centre District Court, he initially tells police that he didn’t know why Mr Harvey’s ute “locked on” its brakes just before their vehicles collided.
“He hit the brakes out of nowhere. We swerved and hit,” he said.
“I’ve gone across three lanes and I looked back in the rearview and it was just chaos.”
In the video the Central Coast man stated he did not “push the (speed) limit” because he had a “near death experience” on the same road and had vowed to always “get home to my family”.
Asked why he fled by Leading Senior Constable Kristy Foster, the scaffolder told her he had stopped to render assistance to Mr Harvey but saw his condition was “out of my hands”.
“Me being in such shock and sick I had to get away from the scene,” he said.
During questioning over a phone conversation he had with friend Jackson Matheson – which the court heard was caught on his vehicle’s Dashcam as he drove from the scene about 4.56pm – Wheway was asked what he told his mate.
“I think I might have killed someone,” he recalled saying in the interview.
In the video Snr Const Foster then read out a portion of the transcript of the phone call. “I had to leave. I wasn’t going to get pinged for that,” she states Wheway said.
Wheway went on to revise some details of his story, admitting that he had been driving at about 120km/h and changing lanes “very quickly”.
He also conceded that it was he who initiated the contact with Mr Harvey’s vehicle.
“I swerved and hit him,” Wheway said in the video. “That’s when I’ve gone off to the side. That’s when I saw them … going into the bushes.”
Defence counsel Alex Radojev on Monday blamed his client’s uneven account of the crash on shock and anguish at learning of Mr Harvey’s death on Facebook.
He asked Snr Const Foster why she had not allowed him to review Dashcam footage to “restore his memory” before giving his uneven recount, given his condition and repeated admission that he was “not 100 per cent sure” what happened.
She said it had not occurred to her at the time.
Agreed facts read to the court revealed that when police arrested Wheway when he pulled into the driveway of his Pollock Ave home he said: “I honestly did not mean for this to happen … I feel sick to my stomach.”
The trial before Judge Robyn Tupman continues.