DRUGS BLAMED FOR CRASH APPEAL LODGED AFTER MUM’S JAIL SENTENCE
A FIFTEEN- YEAR- OLD boy would not have died in a crash had his mother not been driving with an “extraordinarily high” amount of methylamphetamine in her system, a magistrate has found.
Wulguru woman Melissa Ann Crowley was yesterday sentenced to three months in jail, with parole after a month, after pleading guilty to a string of offences.
She was released hours later after her lawyers lodged an appeal and successfully applied for bail.
Crowley, 37, was driving from Cairns to Townsville at 4.30am on September 30, 2015, when her car hit a brumby carcass and slammed into a tree at Bluewater.
The crash, which killed her son Byron Crowley, 15, was the second brumby- related fatality in two months, after a motorcyclist died when he hit a wild horse on the same stretch of road.
The deaths sparked a coronial inquiry and wild horse cull.
Crowley pleaded guilty in Townsville Magistrates Court to driving under the influence, failing to ensure her son was wearing a seatbelt, driving without a licence, possessing drug utensils and failing to dispose of a hypodermic syringe.
Prosecutor Subarna Raut said Crowley was drug tested in the hours following the crash.
“The doctor stated that at 1.3mg/ kg, the defendant had an extraordinarily high blood level of methylamphetamine,” he said. “( He) further stated that the level of the central nervous stimulant methylamphetamine in the defendant’s blood at the time of the traffic incident was in the grossly elevated range, at which a significant number of ( overdose) deaths have been reported.”
Mr Raut said just days prior, on September 10, Crowley had been charged with driving under the influence of methylamphetamine. In February 2013, she was sentenced to two years and four months in jail for trafficking drugs.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters said on the night of the crash, Crowley’s then 14year- old son was seated in the front passenger seat and Byron had removed his seatbelt to lie down in the back seat.
Earlier that night a truck driver hit and killed the brumby and alerted authorities the carcass was on the road.
Mr Walters said the surviving son provided a statement to police saying he saw a darkcoloured animal on the road and, believing it was a kangaroo, yelled out, “Mum, kangaroo”.
“Even the child himself said he only saw it when it was about 10m in front of the vehicle. She had taken some evasive action but it was too late at the time,” he said.
Magistrate Howard Osborne sentenced Crowley to three months’ jail, with release after one month.
“I would reasonably infer that were you not drug- affected, by what is described as an extraordinarily large amount of methylamphetamine, you would have seen the animal – albeit it was not a big horse, and similar colour to the road – at an earlier time than your son did, and avoided the accident,” he said.
Mr Walters lodged an appeal on the grounds that the magistrate could not reasonably make that inference and that the sentence was manifestly excessive.
“Even if there was an inference that she may have seen it earlier, it’s such that the collision was unavoidable,” he said.
Magistrate Steven Mosch said Crowley might have a good chance of success on appeal and granted her bail.
The appeal will be heard in the District Court at a date to be set.