Robert Farquharson had coughing fit in prison, court told

A MAN who says he had a coughing fit before driving into a dam where his three sons drowned also had fit in prison.

Farquharson leaves the Supreme Court at lunch. Picture: Rob Baird

A MAN who says he had a coughing fit before driving into a dam where his three sons drowned fell off a chair while coughing in prison and appeared to lose consciousness, a court has heard.

Robert Farquharson, 41, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his three sons, Jai, 10, Tyler, seven, and Bailey, two, arguing he had a coughing fit and blacked out before driving into the dam near the Victorian town of Winchelsea in September 2005.

On Tuesday, Michael Eames, who was an inmate of Port Phillip Prison with Farquharson in 2009, said Farquharson appeared to lose consciousness after falling off a chair while coughing when they were working on a prison assembly line.

Eames said he and other prisoners, including Farquharson, were laughing at a joke when Farquharson began coughing.

He said Farquharson fell to the floor and he heard something that sounded like a head "hitting concrete''.

Eames said he gave Farquharson a ``thump'' in the buttocks, but Farquharson did not appear to move.

He said he believed Farquharson was not conscious.

During cross-examination by Andrew Tinney SC, Eames said he first thought Farquharson was being rude and not listening to the joke.

"I couldn't say whether he deliberately threw himself to the ground or not,'' he said.

"I thought maybe he could have fallen off through laughing.''

Chris Steinfort, a physician who has examined Farquharson, said Eames' evidence appeared to be a ``classic description'' of cough syncope, the condition in which a person loses consciousness while coughing.

The trial before Justice Lex Lasry is continuing.