Rohan Dennis police interview revealed: ‘I saw in my mirror that she was on the ground’
What started as an argument over the mundane between two Olympians spun out of control and ended in a sickening thud, police were told.
It was a shocking and absurd scene. As champion cyclist Rohan Dennis drove away from his family home in his Volkswagen Amarok utility, his wife and fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins clung to the bonnet and stared him down through the windscreen.
A dispute behind closed doors between the two parents and public figures had spilled over into a public street in their well-to-do suburb.
If only it had ended there.
On the night of December 30, 2023, Dennis and Hoskins found themselves in a furious disagreement over a three-year-old renovation at their stone-front villa at Medindie in Adelaide’s north.
Dennis was unhappy with the quality of work in the kitchen and admitted to police he “couldn’t quite let it go”.
He said he wanted to leave the house to get some fresh air and “de-escalate”. Hoskins did not want him to go.
Neither of the two athletes, whose determination had taken them to the pinnacle of sporting achievement, were prepared to back down. Moments later, Hoskins was sucked under the wheels of the heavy ute being driven by Dennis and her life was tragically cut short.
What had started as an argument over the mundane had spun out of control and ended in a sickening thud.
The events of that fateful Saturday night have finally been revealed publicly in prosecution facts and Dennis’s police interview released on Tuesday, and during sentencing submissions in Adelaide’s District Court on Monday.
Some of what is known is based entirely on Dennis’s version of events, but key parts are confirmed in almost blanket CCTV coverage of the incident as it unfolded in the streets outside the couple’s home.
According to the prosecution facts, the couple were “arguing about renovations that had been completed at their home some three years prior”.
The argument “did not involve any physical acts of violence” by Dennis towards Hoskins.
When Dennis went to leave, Hoskins hid the remote controls for the garage in an attempt to keep him there.
The attempt failed when Dennis hit the manual override to open the doors. As he drove away from the home in his Volkswagen Amarok utility, Hoskins leapt onto his bonnet.
During their competitive years, success or failure often came down to seconds. The heartbreaking end to Hoskins’ life was also measured in seconds.
Rather than stopping, Dennis continued to drive for at least six seconds with his wife’s face and arms up towards the windscreen and her feet towards the front of the car, CCTV footage showed.
She was straddling the vehicle for longer, but likely only for seconds more, as the first frame of the CCTV footage depicted her already on the bonnet.
Dennis was driving east on Medindie Lane towards Avenel Gardens Road, and as he reached the intersection, Hoskins dismounted. With Dennis turning left and Hoskins now on foot, she reached out and opened the driver’s side door.
Dennis pulled it shut and accelerated away.
Only three seconds passed between Hoskins getting off the vehicle and Dennis closing the door and accelerating.
Hoskins held onto the handle, tripped, and was dragged under the vehicle as Dennis drove down Avenel Gardens Road.
That had unfolded in only two seconds.
Dennis heard a thud and brought the ute to a halt.
“The defendant stopped and rendered assistance. Ambulance and police were called to the scene,” the prosecution facts state. Hoskins later died at Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Police interviewed Dennis under caution at 12.28am in the Adelaide city watch-house on New Year’s Eve, just four hours after the collision.
Less than 24 hours before revellers would cheerfully welcome the new year, he was dealing with a devastating tragedy largely of his own making.
After at first asking to speak to his parents, he agreed to talk to police without a solicitor, relative, friend or anyone else present.
The argument had started earlier in the day, around 4pm, after he’d texted their builder to ask for a chat about getting some things fixed, he told police.
“I was annoyed that we’d paid good money and basically it’s just the product isn’t good enough,” he said.
The tense atmosphere briefly eased over dinner, an entirely ordinary meal of lamb chops, broccolini and corn, he said.
Hoskins made a cosmopolitan cocktail, with one or two shots of alcohol at most, and offered him some. He took a sip, and she finished the rest.
Just after 7pm the couple’s two children went to bed. Dennis was washing the dishes when they started arguing again over some mess in the kitchen.
“She said ‘I’ll clean it up’, I said ‘no, not having that’ because she’d already basically made dinner and it felt like I was not really contributing, so I thought I’m not gonna have that also over my head, that I haven’t even helped clean up.
“So that flared it up a little bit as well and that’s where it sort of went from there. The rest of it, as in us arguing about the kitchen.”
He wanted police to know there had never “in our lives” been anything physical like “pushing, punching … It’s just not us, mate”.
But tensions had “boiled over again and we were yelling at each other”, he said.
“I was like, ‘I’m out’, as in like, I’m just gonna leave the house. I just needed to leave, get out. I thought it’s just easier, I’ll grab the car and just f..ken just go. Ten, 20 minutes. Come back.”
Hoskins had other ideas.
“She said, ‘if you go, I’m going’,” he said.
The first time he went to leave, he realised he’d left his phone behind. He returned and left again.
“As I was getting in my car my wife, Mel, ran out, and as I was moving she jumped in front and onto the bonnet. So I kept driving slowly down the lane and was, like, just looking at her … like, ‘what are you doing’.”
With Hoskins on the bonnet he continued to drive, reaching about 20km/h, hoping she would realise “that’s a bit silly”.
When she got off the car at the intersection, he thought “that’s great, now I can drive”.
The next part happened in the blink of an eye, he said.
Deciding to turn left into Avenel Gardens instead of right to avoid hitting Hoskins, he saw in his peripheral vision that she was trying to grab at the door handle.
“That’s why I put my foot down … and that’s … I honestly didn’t realise, it happened so quick.
“I didn’t realise she was grabbing hold of it until it was too late. Until I heard that thud and I’ve realised she must have held onto it and ran.”
She “must have been running next to the car trying to get onto the foot step on the side”, he said.
“I saw in my mirror that she was on the ground. So I pulled over as quick as I could and ran back to her. Realised I didn’t have my phone so I ran back to the car, got my phone to call triple-0, and was just yelling out for people to help.”
When he stopped the car he thought she was “going to be a little bit injured”. He soon saw how bad it really was.
In the shock and confusion that followed, he didn’t realise his phone was connected to his car. He couldn’t hear the emergency operator, so hung up.
“I went through my phone and called again, but at that stage I was yelling ‘help’. And the neighbours came out and they started calling triple-0, I think. At this stage I was on to somebody from the emergency.”
As Hoskins was dying on the road, he kept talking to her to try to keep her awake.
Neighbours brought out a rug for Hoskins to rest her head, then the police and ambulance arrived.
Among those who helped was neighbour Andrew Fox and his wife. Police quickly realised the Fox’s property had CCTV cameras.
“So he came to me and he said ‘the police want to see my video footage, I’m not comfortable’, and I said, ‘you do what’s comfortable with you. That’s not my decision to make’,” Dennis said.
Mr Fox declined to comment when contacted by The Australian on Tuesday.
Barrister Jane Abbey KC, for Dennis, told the court he “thought that by putting his foot down, he was removing danger”.
“That’s of course, in the light of day, something that he realises was not a full picture and not a full thought.”
For just over a second, as Dennis was accelerating, Hoskins ran alongside the car. Then she was pulled underneath it and suffered her fatal injuries.
Dennis pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated act likely to cause harm. He admitted the charge on the basis he was recklessly indifferent to whether his acts were likely to cause harm.
The plea entitles him to a sentence reduction of up to 35 per cent. He has no criminal history.
Hoskins’ mother, Amanda, said she believed it was a tragic accident and that he would never have intentionally hurt Hoskins. But he had to address his Achilles heel, she said.
“Your temper is your downfall and needs to be addressed,” she said.
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