A Victorian court is set to decide if a driver charged over the deaths of five people outside a country pub, will stand trial before a jury.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:0057-year-old William Herbert Swale has type 1 diabetes and his lawyers told the Ballarat
00:08Magistrates Court that there's a very large issue about whether the crash, which happened
00:13outside the Dalesford Hotel in November last year, was a conscious and voluntary act.
00:19That's because they say that he actually suffered from a hypoglycemic episode caused by low
00:25blood sugar levels.
00:26Now we all remember those awful scenes where an idyllic Sunday afternoon with people dining
00:33outside the Dalesford pub in the beer garden area on a long weekend for the Melbourne Cup
00:40Carnival came to an absolutely horrific and tragic end when this SUV mounted the kerb
00:48and crashed through picnic tables, claiming the lives of a woman, her husband and her
00:53nine-year-old daughter, and separately a man and his 11-year-old son, as well as injuring
01:00other people.
01:01Now Mr Swale was behind the wheel of that SUV but prosecutors say he's not guilty of
01:07charges including causing death by culpable driving because they say that there is no
01:14evidence to suggest that he actually saw any of those phone notifications alerting or warning
01:20him to the fact that his blood sugar levels had dropped.
01:24But prosecutors say that he had ignored his phone notifications and there's also evidence
01:30that he knew that his blood glucose levels tended to drop before dinner time.
01:35Now we've already heard evidence from a witness who was out with Mr Swale on the morning of
01:41the crash at a shooting range and he says that Mr Swale appeared vague.
01:47And there have also been testimonies from witnesses who were at the actual Dalesford
01:53pub just after this incident, also paramedics who attended to him and could describe his
02:00state after the crash as well as an IT expert.
02:03We're expecting to hear more evidence from other witnesses today and then it will be
02:08up to a magistrate to decide whether or not Mr Swale has a case to answer.
02:13That is, whether or not he will actually face a criminal trial on these charges before a jury.