Prosecutors allege ‘deliberate delay’ in case of teacher who allegedly caused child’s death on Groote Eylandt

Prosecutors have threatened to bypass the committal process for an NT teacher charged over the death of a child in his care by filing an indictment directly with the Supreme Court.

PROSECUTORS have threatened to bypass the committal process for a Top End teacher charged over the death of a child in his care by filing an indictment directly with the Supreme Court.

Ian De Silva faced the Darwin Local Court on Monday where he stands charged with dangerous driving causing death, recklessly endangering life and driving unlicensed after the crash that killed the 10-year-old boy on Groote Eylandt in December.

His lawyer Robert Welfare told judge Tanya Fong Lim he wanted to see transcripts and translations of witness statements before the case could be committed to the Supreme Court.

“There’s reported statements with no accredited translators. They’re not translated, they’re not transcribed,” he said.

“There’s two of those and 10 additional recorded statements without transcriptions and signatures of the person who made the thing attesting to it being true.”

But prosecutor Ian Rowbottom said he had written to Mr Welfare three months ago asking what further material he required to proceed and had only heard back “last night”.

“This is a deliberate attempt at delaying this matter. It’s seven months old, it concerns the death of a 10-year-old boy who died in his teacher’s care,” he said.

“What we have — and I personally listened to the two statements, numbers four and five — is about 47 seconds of language.

“One of the witnesses, one of the people who was there, if I spoke to him on the telephone I would barely know that he is an Aboriginal person, he virtually has no accent at all.”

De Silva will return to court next month.

Mr Rowbottom said the case had “gone on and on” and “we’re getting to the stage” of bypassing the committal process by presenting an ex officio indictment directly to the Supreme Court.

Mr Rowbottom said he would be happy to provide the outstanding transcripts without further translation within a matter of hours but Ms Fong Lim ordered they be served within a week and that Mr Welfare give notice if he intended to cross examine any witnesses by July 27.

At the time of the crash, police said the 10-year-old boy was one of several children in the car and while the other occupants managed to get out, he died at the scene.

They said De Silva was flown to Darwin where he was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

He will return to court on August 3.