Wayne Hunt pleads guilty to killing 11-year-old Daemarius Purcell-Appo outside Palmerston supermarket

A man who fatally hit an 11-year-old boy five days before Christmas has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death.

A man who fatally pinned an 11-year-old boy to the wall of a Palmerston supermarket car park while high on cannabis five days before Christmas will be assessed for home detention.

Wayne Peter Hunt pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court on Monday to one count of dangerous driving causing the death of Daemarius Purcell-Appo at the Moulden Supermarket on December 20, 2022.

The court heard Hunt was driving an unmodified Dodge Ram ute in contravention of licence conditions imposed after he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident in 2008 when he went to the shop for an iced coffee at midday.

Wayne Peter Hunt will face a Supreme Court trial after allegedly pinning and killing 11-year-old Daemarius Purcell-Appo in a Moulden car park Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

After dropping the bottle underneath the vehicle, Hunt reversed the ute backwards to retrieve it before he placed it in drive and began to get out as it rolled forward.

By the time the 55-year-old realised his mistake, Daemarius was standing between the ute and supermarket wall where he was crushed to death when Hunt applied the accelerator instead of the brake.

Crown prosecutor Ian Rowbottam said the Ram lurched forward, pinning the 11-year-old against the wall and causing him to suffer “immediate catastrophic crush injuries”.

“(The boy’s uncle) began screaming at the offender to reverse the vehicle,” he said.

“The offender took over eight seconds before he reversed the vehicle, which had the effect of releasing the victim from being pinned against the wall.

“Once freed, the victim fell to the ground in a critically injured condition, initially attempting to crawl on the footpath.

“The offender exited the vehicle and seeing what he had done, walked off into the nearby parkland and remained there until police arrived.”

Mr Rowbottam tendered an expert report that showed the amount of cannabis in Hunt’s system at the time would have been “approximately equivalent to the effects experienced by a person with a blood-alcohol concentration in the range 0.05 to 0.1”.

“The Crown case is that the lack of modification of that vehicle combined with his intoxication was what led to this child’s shocking death,” he said.

In asking for Hunt to be assessed for home detention, defence lawyer Matt Hubber said his client used cannabis to self-medicate after losing his leg and becoming addicted to prescription opiates.

“After this accident — not before, but after — he was indeed prescribed medical cannabis, he’s now in receipt of medicinal cannabis which is lawfully prescribed to him,” he said.

“Your honour can see how he has mistakenly applied pressure to the accelerator, perhaps mistakenly put the car in the incorrect gear.

“It’s not a situation where he was so intoxicated that he was equivalent to say a high-range drink-driver or impaired to that degree.”

Hunt will return to court for sentencing on February 14.