Glare at scene of fatality

NEW lighting installed at a Tablelands service station where a motorbike rider was killed in a crash was so bright it impeded a police officer’s investigation of the fatality, a court heard.

Millstream man Murray Wills, 49, suffered serious injuries when his Harley Davidson motorbike was struck by a Jeep turning into the Mobil station on the Kennedy Highway about 7pm on November 17, 2017. He died two days later in hospital.

Mareeba man Norman John Noel Small, 50, who was driving the Jeep, has pleaded not guilty to dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death.

During the second day of his trial in the Cairns District Court, Forensic Crash Unit Sen-Constable Lee Chamberlain said he found it difficult to photograph the crash scene due to the service station’s signage.

“Looking down the road, getting ready to take those photographs, the light was very bright,” he said.

One of the first people on scene, Tablelands builder Kasey Smy, who was driving behind the Jeep when the crash occurred, said he heard a crash and saw the motorbike “going through the air”.

He was also asked about the lighting.

“It was bright, but I wouldn’t say it was blindingly bright,” he said.

The court heard he regularly travelled on that section of road and was aware the service station had recently changed the signage to an LED board instead of the traditional petrol pricing sign.

Sen-Constable Chamberlain told the court the collision “wasn’t a high-speed crash”.

The trial continues today.