Matthew Livingston pleads guilty to death of Harriet Peckitt as truck filmed swerving before crash
The movements of a man moments before he drove a 43-tonne truck into the back of a family car, killing a young girl, have been revealed in court.
A truck weighing more than 40 tonnes was filmed swerving on a freeway north of Melbourne before it hit a family car, killing a two-year-old girl, a court has heard.
Victorian man Matthew Livingston, 44, pleaded guilty on Monday to a raft of charges relating to the incident, including culpable driving causing death.
The County Court heard on Monday that shortly after 2:30pm on December 6, 2021, Mr Livingston approached the Bulla-Diggers Road overpass as he drove on the Calder Fwy in the suburb of Diggers Rest, north of Melbourne, when he ran into the back of a stationary Volkswagen Tiguan.
Harriett Peckitt, who was in the car with her parents and baby sister after a family visit to the Macedon Ranges, died at the scene, the court heard, and her parents suffered severe injuries.
The court heard that the crash involved five cars and placed an extra ten people in danger of serious injury.
Footage from the dashcam camera of Mark Tuckerman, who was driving a Prime Mover with his wife at the time, showed Mr Livingston’s truck swerving on or over the centre lines and the left fog lines of the Calder Fwy before the crash, the court heard.
Felicity Stewart, the mother of the victim, told the court that her young family had only recently returned from the United Kingdom to Victoria, where they had decided to raise their children.
Ms Stewart, a high school teacher of history and English, suffered 54 days of post-traumatic amnesia and has an acquired brain injury as a result of the fatal accident, she told the court.
She said she and her husband had experienced “something that no parent should have to endure.”
Ms Stewart and her husband, Simon Peckitt, held hands in the front row of the courtroom throughout Monday’s plea hearing.
Mr Peckitt told the court that “I still remember the scream I made the first time I saw (Harriet’s) lifeless body,” and told of the pain of being asked to withhold telling his wife of their daughter’s death until she recovered from her post-traumatic amnesia.
Mr Livingston pleaded guilty to 13 charges on Monday, including ten charges of negligent driving that placed other people at risk of serious injury and two charges of negligently causing injury.
He also admitted to making false records in his trucking diary, working more than the maximum time allowed, and resting for less than the minimum amount of time.
At the time of the offences, Mr Livingston was a truck driver for Hendy Holdings, a Victorian transport company.
The prosecution said in its opening summary said Mr Livingston did not slow down as he approached the overpass, despite road signs that warned him to.
It also said the truck he was driving was travelling “at least” 86 km/h when it collided with the Tiguan, despite traffic being required to slow to 40 km/h in the immediate area.
The hearing, before Judge Tinney, continues.