Actor’s life support off after car horror
THE life support of Home And Away actor Jessica Falkholt was switched off last night, more than two weeks after a Boxing Day car crash claimed the lives of her parents and sister.
It comes as the Bulletin can today reveal the habitual traffic offender who caused the horrific crash, Craig Whitall, had been previously jailed four times for dangerous driving.
Whitall, who also died, had more than 60 traffic offences on his record, including at least 10 convictions for driving while disqualified.
Deemed a “habitual traffic offender” by the courts, the drug addict was given a nineyear road ban at one stage.
Yet he was given another chance to get behind the wheel and was on his P-plates when he killed Lars and Vivian Falkholt and their 21-year-old daughter Annabelle.
Police confirmed the life support of Jessica, 28, was switched off late yesterday.
Whitall was a serial offender who was also claiming a disability pension and who had used 28 aliases to try to avoid the police as he totally ignored the law to drive a car literally each day after being caught.
Whitall had another nine convictions for driving without a licence – four of them in the one month. Twice in just two days in 1998 he was caught driving without a licence.
He was so well known to police in Ulladulla that they easily recognised him behind the wheel while flagrantly disregarding the traffic orders against him.
In March 2011, they saw him drive past them in a white Holden Commodore and followed him home to Mollymook where he told them: “I wasn’t driving, it was me mum.”
Police have spoken to witnesses who saw Craig Whitall’s Prado swerving on to the opposite side of the road at least twice before the head-on crash on December 26.
He was driving on P plates just a year after getting his licence back. But page after page of his criminal record shows the former drug addict was somehow behind the wheel.
He had been banned from holding a licence for the whole nine years between July 2004 to July 2013.
In August 2004, he was jailed for nine months for driving while disqualified.
A year later for the same offence he was jailed for 16 months and declared an habitual traffic offender at Nowra Local Court.
His son Shane Whitall was yesterday before Milton Local Court facing traffic, drug and break-and-enter offences.