Man who hit and killed mother of four on Central Coast road breaks silence
The man who hit and killed a beloved mother of four on a treacherous Central Coast highway in 2016 has spoken for the first time about the events of that tragic night.
Central Coast
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More than 1000 days since her “senseless” death on a treacherous Central Coast road, the pain felt by Annabelle Deall’s family remains unbearable, a court has heard.
On Friday the man responsible spoke for the first time about the tragic events of August 6, 2016, when he swerved onto the wrong side of Terrigal’s Scenic Highway and slammed into the beloved mother of four.
Menouar Belkadi, who pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving occasioning death in June, told Downing Centre District Court he had thought about that moment “every single hour” since.
“From that moment … I knew I took a mother away from her children,” the 24-year-old said as he sobbed in the witness box.
“I put myself in the children’s shoes, for them to go through that I’m so, so sorry.”
Earlier five of Ms Deall’s closest loved ones — her sister, brother, father, mother and husband — read victim impact statements detailing the horror they felt that night and the lingering impact of her death.
Sister Georgina Bickmore said she often found herself sobbing uncontrollably and was “tormented” by the phone call she missed from Ms Deall shortly before her death.
“Had I answered that call I may have delayed her leaving for just a few minutes. That might have saved her life,” she said.
Brother William King remembered his disgust at finding the Facebook page of his sister’s killer, which bore a profile picture of Mr Belkadi smiling in the driver’s seat of the car that ended Ms Deall’s life.
“What would possess anyone who had done what he done to keep these up for all the world to see?” he said.
Father David King said he was still “overwhelmed” with grief three years on, and his wife Clare King’s statement kept returning to the same phrase: “No apology, no remorse.”
Simon Deall, Ms Deall’s husband, said he had lost his best friend and spoke of having to tell his four children they would never see their mother again.
“For three years our sons have asked what would happen to the person who killed their mother,” he said.
“I’ve had to tell them, ‘I don’t know.”
Mr Belkadi, who took almost three years to enter a guilty plea, has admitted to have been travelling at 60km/h in a 50 zone as he approached a crest in the road about 7.30pm before the highway dropped away.
On the other side Ms Deall and two of her friends were about 30m in front of him crossing the road for their dinner date at The Cowrie Restaurant.
Two tried to run out of the way by crossing onto the far lane, but moved into the car’s path.
Ms Deall was killed and her friend Meagan Darling received pelvic injuries.
“I froze in my mind,” he said. “They hesitated and then kept walking after I’d made my decision to go right.”
At the end of the hearing Judge Sarah Huggett said she could not see how she could possible arrive at a sentence that would be less than two years full time custody.
The maximum penalty is 10 years jail.
Mr Belkadi will be sentenced on Friday, September 20.
