A woman died on a dirt road in Brewarrina because the car she was travelling in was involved in a police pursuit that had “no proper basis”, the NSW state coroner has found.
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Magistrate Mary Jerram found Vanessa Hardy died from multiple injuries after she was thrown through the car’s rear window when it rolled on the Carinda Road at 3am on October 12 2003.
The pursuit started when a police vehicle tried to stop a red Commodore being driven by Joseph Shillingsworth, in order to breath test him.
Drunk and unlicensed he drove off, soon pursued by highway patrol officer Senior Constable Benjamin Preston. He followed Mr Shillingsworth down a dirt track to the also-dirt Carinda Road.
The ensuing chase “in pitch black” through clouds of dust reached speeds of up to 100km/h until Mr Shillingsworth rolled his car.
“There was no proper basis to pursue Shillingsworth when he refused to stop,” Magistrate Jerram said in her findings.
“Had he not been pursued, he would have not gone into the bush nor reached the speeds which caused the car to overturn.
“The only thing more dangerous than a drunk driver is a drunk driver being pursued.”
Magistrate Jerram damned part of Snr Cnst Preston’s evidence as “not truthful”.
And she found a “horrifying” lack of knowledge among police about the safe driving policy in the Darling River Local Area Command at the time of the accident.
The inquest heard Brewarrina Police Station commander Senior Sergeant Ross Wilkinson told investigators that if police merely followed a car without warning lights it was not a pursuit.
Snr Cnst Preston told the inquest his red and blue flashing lights were on when he entered the dirt track, but later denied having his siren on, or that he was in pursuit, and claimed he turned his lights off for that reason.
He said his speed was between “20 and 30km/h”, later agreeing it was “60-90 and up to 100”.
“It is clear from the VGK (police radio) tape Snr Cnst Preston’s siren was on when he told VGK he was on the dirt track,” the coroner said.
An officer in the car that tried to pull Mr Shillingsworth over, then Probationary Constable Stephen Innes, was “firm that the warning lights were on at all times when he sighted Cnst Preston’s vehicle, and were still flashing when he pulled up next to his, Innes’ car”.
Ms Hardy’s family was not told immediately of the accident, nor were they told of any action taken against police involved.
Innes, an officer for seven weeks at the time, later gave information to Diane Hardy, Vanessa’s mother, going against police guidelines.
One of the magistrate’s four recommendations was for no disciplinary action against Constable Innes.
Magistrate Jerram noted his “compassion” toward the family, and his “honest evidence”.
She has recommended that all police pursuit powers be clarified, that more education be given to all NSW police officers, and has hinted police found to have not followed pursuit rules could be charged.