Wyongah: Marlee Kelley pleads guilty to aggravated dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm
A young chef, who left her partner with critical head injuries after ploughing into a tree while drunk and speeding, will be sentenced next month.
Central Coast
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A young female chef dragged her new girlfriend out of a car by the hair and assaulted her before ploughing them both into a tree, a court has heard.
Fourteen months after leaving her new partner with critical head injuries Marlee Rose Kelley, of Tuggerawong, pleaded guilty to aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.
The 23-year-old faced Wyong Local Court on Tuesday where she also pleaded guilty to six other offences, including drink-driving and two counts of assault, which will be taken into account at sentencing.
The court heard while there was no agreed set of facts, Kelley pleaded guilty to the police allegations and the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted her pleas.
According to court documents Kelley had been in an intimate relationship with a 35-year-old woman for about three months before moving in with her.
About four weeks later the pair arrived at the Wadalba McDonalds in a silver Holden Commodore station wagon at 5.57pm on October 1, 2018.
Parked across from the 7-Eleven service station her partner is captured on CCTV getting out of the driver’s side door before returning with food a few minutes later.
Kelley is then seen to exit the front passenger’s door, walk around to the driver’s side door where she dragged her girlfriend “out of the driver’s side by the hair”.
Kelley assaulted her partner again before both tussled and got back into the car with Kelley behind the wheel.
She took off along the Pacific Hwy and onto Johns Rd so fast a frightened motorist had to pull over “out of fear of being either run off the road or impacted”, court documents state.
Another witness later told police they saw the Commodore stop in the middle of the road where a female passenger tried to get out only to be dragged back inside by the driver before both exchanged a flurry of punches.
Kelley accelerated away before turning into Cooranga Rd, at Wyongah.
“A short time later the vehicle crashed heavily into a tree causing significant damage to the vehicle,” court documents state.
Her girlfriend was not wearing a seatbelt and both were trapped in the wreckage for some time until emergency services arrived.
Metropolitan Crash Investigation Unit officers attended and assessed Kelley must have been travelling more than 45km/h over the limit, while toxicology results showed she was under the influence of alcohol at the time.
Kelley was flown to Royal North Shore Hospital while her partner was flown to Westmead Hospital with critical head injuries.
She remained in a coma for more than a week.
Kelley will face Gosford District Court on February 2 when a date will be set for her sentencing.