Inside the Law. Vikki Petraitis
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the officers noticed tyre marks on the nature strip next to the car. The scuff marks were fresh and couldn’t have been made by the gold Ford because it had not mounted the curb.
The gold Ford did, however, have flakes of red paint from the Holden lodged in its front grill.
Chris Field checked the nature strip closely and picked up a bit of plastic moulding, which he recognised as part of the bumper bar of a late model Holden – possibly a Commodore.
Something was amiss. Why were there pieces of a Commodore near the wrecked gold Ford – but no Holden Commodore in sight?
He then noticed a dent in the gold Ford that didn’t seem to be associated with the damage caused by the collision with the red Holden. There were pieces of green paint lodged in the dent.
Senior Constable Field put two and two together. He figured that a green Holden Commodore had driven up onto the nature strip after the collision and then, in its haste to leave the scene, had tried to drive forward along the nature strip to get back onto the road. It appeared there hadn’t been enough room to pass between the wrecked gold Ford and a power pole on the nature strip, so the green Commodore had clipped the Ford leaving behind part of its bumper bar and paint work.
Common sense told the officers that the driver of the green Holden Commodore had collected the driver of the gold Ford and driven him away. That made the collision a hit-and-run and the job became a four car, single fatal, double hit-run.
Field immediately put out a bulletin for a late model, green Holden Commodore with front end damage. He then radioed D24 for an officer from the state forensic science laboratory to attend the scene and gather evidence like soil samples and tyre casts.
Field and his team knew such samples may be needed later in court to link the missing vehicle with the accident scene.
The next step in the investigation was to find the owner of the abandoned gold Ford. Registration details were taken from the smashed window of the car and a police check was run on the owner; Garry’s name was soon known to police.
Field sent uniformed officers to the address only to find that Garry hadn’t lived there for some time. Field then ran an information bureau of records (IBR) check on Garry and wasn’t really surprised to find he had a long list of prior convictions – most of which were for driving and drug offences. The IBR check also listed Garry’s known associates.
Four addresses were checked before police officers located Garry’s mother who gave them his current address – he was living with a mate called Nick.
Chris Field left Exton and Hill at the accident scene and went with uniformed officers to the house in Noble Park. Using their powerful police torches, Field and the other officers illuminated the green Holden Commodore in the driveway of the house. It had obvious, recent front-end damage.
It was now six hours since the collision. Examination of the exterior of the Commodore was interrupted by loud barking and the arrival of two dogs – one of them a bull terrier. Field recalls bluffing the dogs with his police baton before making his way to the front door of the house.
A woman came out onto the front porch when the dogs started to bark. Field asked to speak to the driver of the green Commodore.
The woman retreated for a moment, told someone to say nothing, and then returned to tell Field a story. Her boyfriend Nick, and his mate Garry, had been at the pub watching a strip show when they noticed Garry’s car was being stolen from the car park. They’d pursued the thieves until Garry’s car had been involved in an accident. Nick had driven them home and, according to the woman, was going to report the whole thing to the police the following day.
Understandably, Field was sceptical and asked to see Garry. He was led into the lounge room where a man in his mid-20s was lying on the couch covered with a blanket.
Field asked him to stand up, which he did reluctantly and with great difficulty. It was obvious Garry’s legs were severely bruised and one of his wrists was swollen enough to suggest it was broken.
Ironically, as Garry repeated the story the woman had told, and denied any involvement in the accident, evidence to the contrary literally fell from his lap. As soon as he stood up bits of windscreen glass began dropping from his tracksuit.
Field cut him short. ‘Don’t insult our intelligence, mate. Tell us what really happened.’
Garry and Nick finally admitted to their part in the fatal collision but denied, when asked, that they’d been drag racing.
Garry and Nick showed no obvious signs of regret or remorse when told the driver of the red Holden had died.
Chris Field was used to such reactions. He cautioned the two men and took them to the Cheltenham police station to be interviewed. Worried about taking a statement from the injured Garry, he called in the police surgeon. The doctor recommended that Garry be taken to hospital for x-rays. Nick was later released pending further investigation.
In Heatherton, Tony Hill and Geoffrey Exton supervised the removal of the smashed cars – the gold Ford was sent by tow truck to the state forensic science laboratory while the other cars went to local police compounds to be sealed until examination by police mechanics attached to the accident squad. Using a geodometer, they measured the distance between the vehicles and the skid marks at the accident scene in order to prepare a scale map of the incident.
Police then began the painstaking examination of the evidence to put the puzzle together. From the witness statement of the driver of the white station wagon, they knew there’d been at least one other car on the road.
Chris Field appealed through the media for the driver of the car that Garry was trying to pass, before the collision, to come forward.
The man rang police the next day. He said he’d been driving along the road in Heatherton when he saw two cars in his rear-vision mirror speeding up behind. They were going so fast, he said, that he was sure they were going to crash into the back of his car. He had seen (Garry’s) car swerve onto the wrong side of the road, to go around him, and hit the oncoming red Holden.
The man told police he had ‘freaked’ and was unable to stop – in fear of what he would see. He went home, had a stiff drink, and telephoned police the following day to offer his assistance. He was a valuable witness.
Garry was charged with: culpable driving causing death; recklessly causing injury to the wife of the deceased, negligently causing injury to the wife of the deceased, and recklessly placing the wife in danger of death; recklessly placing the woman and her son (in the other vehicle) in danger of death; failing to render assistance at the scene of the accident; failing to give name and address at the scene of the accident; as well as driving in a manner careless, driving in a manner dangerous, driving while disqualified, crossing double lines, and exceeding 60 km per hour.
Garry’s alleged speed according to complicated calculations performed by accident investigators was 100 km per hour.
When his case finally came to court, Garry pleaded guilty to the charge of culpable driving – giving him an automatic one-third reduction of any possible sentence.
Senior Constable Chris Field said that Garry ‘cried like a baby’ when the judge gave him a 30-month jail sentence.
The full penalty for culpable driving was (then) 15 years in prison, but drivers never got the full term. Field explained he always tried to distance himself from the sentencing process because he felt the sentence was society’s responsibility. He said he merely did his job, which finished when he gave evidence.
He did note his disappointment, however, that a man like Garry was given such a relatively-light sentence considering his list of prior convictions.
Garry had lost his driver’s licence almost as soon as he got it. In 1987 he’d been convicted of unlicensed driving and exceeding .05; his blood alcohol reading was .170. He had also been convicted of dangerous driving and speeding. A year later he’d been convicted on a number of theft and drug trafficking charges. In addition to his considerable list of prior convictions, Garry continued to