Jury to determine fatal accident fault
A JURY this week will have to determine whether the driver of the car that killed a 32-year-old three years ago was at fault, or if his vehicle had defects.
Anthony Descas, 27, yesterday pleaded not guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle causing the death of Brisbane woman Rebecca Liu on Marine Pde, Southport.
Descas was driving home from work at the Parkwood Golf Club with a colleague about 11.20pm on September 13, 2014, when he lost control of the Holden Commodore he bought only days earlier.
He crashed into several other vehicles, including Ms Liu’s car.
The trial will consider whether Descas was driving dangerously in the seconds before he lost control and killed Ms Liu.
Crown prosecutor Clayton Wallace told the jury of four men and eight women to consider whether Descas drove with less than “due care and attention”.
He asked them to consider whether he failed to steer his vehicle and keep it in the correct lane.
Mr Wallace said the crown would seek to prove Descas failed to keep proper control of the car, an adequate lookout and applied the accelerator too strongly in the circumstances.
Meanwhile, the court heard the car had several problems including faulty headlights and a faulty ABS brake unit.
Defence barrister Angus Edwards yesterday put to several witnesses that a range of warning lights flashed on the dashboard before the car lurched on to the other side of the road.
The court heard on the night of the incident the road was damp but the traffic was light and visibility was clear.
Passenger and colleague Luke Boland gave evidence that the car’s “high beams were flicking on and off intermittently” in the lead-up to the crash.
“I felt the car accelerate slightly but I don’t remember how long before,” he said.
“There is a gap in my memory ... but I remember Anthony put his arm across my chest and then we ended up mounting the median strip.”
Boland also told the court Descas came to visit him in hospital after the crash where he told him he had looked down at the dashboard moments before the accident.
Witness to the crash, Cale Bird, was driving in the opposite direction when he saw Descas’s car coming towards him, he told the court.
“I saw him fishtailing,” he said.
“I was in the left lane ... I saw the Commodore ... I glanced over sideways and when I looked back he was in the air.”
The trial continues today.