A man charged over the road death of a young pedestrian in January last year will stand trial in the County Court next month.
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Miles Richard Parry, 32, appeared in the Bendigo Magistrates' Court on Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to charges of careless driving, dangerous driving and dangerous driving causing death on January 19, 2022.
Magistrate Megan Aumair, after hearing evidence from four witnesses, concluded there was evidence of sufficient weight to warrant a trial.
The first witness to appear at the hearing had told the court she saw the deceased walking along the road on the evening she died.
The witness was driving "on dusk" doing 80kmh, as she had been taught to do on the single-lane bitumen road, which was surrounded by bush scrub and paddocks, had gravel shoulders, corrugations and at times, water over it.
From 100m to 200m away, the witness saw a person facing towards her.
As the witness approached the pedestrian, having slowed to 40-50kmh, she saw a woman who had a dog with her.
"She was kneeling down holding the dog collar and smiled at me," the witness told the court.
Young woman was on the gravel section
Under questioning from defence counsel Emily Clark, the witness said the young woman was on the gravel section of the road but couldn't say definitively if her feet had been on the gravel or the bitumen.
The witness had woken the day after the incident to a Bendigo Advertiser "newsflash" about the accident on her phone.
"I saw that it was a fatal collision and that [a young woman] had died," she told the court.
The following day she called the police to tell them what she had seen, believing "in my heart of hearts that it was the right thing to do".
Detective Sergeant Robert Hay, from Victoria Police Collision Reconstruction Unit was questioned closely by Ms Clark about his analysis of the fatal crash, with light, distance, speed, angle and the exact location of the victim all at issue.
According to Detective Sergeant Hay, the Volkswagen Mr Parry was driving was travelling at between 107kmh and 130kmh and had veered off the single-lane bitumen section of the road onto the gravel, and the vehicle was starting to move back onto the sealed section when the collision occurred.
There appeared to have been "plenty of light at the time", Mr Hay told the court.
Pressed by the defence, he conceded he would have "preferred" more evidence was available.
"Certainly I'd have preferred to find some tyre marks to corroborate my opinion but I didn't," the detective sergeant said.
However, he was confident of the reliability of the methods he had adopted.
Questions over driving
Questioned by Ms Clark, Detective Acting Sergeant Jeremy Nelson told the court that Mr Parry's driving had been dangerous because he drove on the gravel shoulder rather than the bitumen and at a high speed.
Detective Acting Sergeant Nelson described the accident as having "the hallmarks of a sleep episode", where the driver wakes up and comes back onto the road.
However, Mr Parry had reported having had a good sleep the night before and there was no reason to believe tiredness had been an issue.
Detective Acting Sergeant Nelson said he had been unsuccessful accessing information about the Strava exercise app the victim had been using and that no-one was able to determine what she had been listening to through headphones on her phone.
Her family had told him she often walked at sunset and took photos, he said.
At the conclusion of the hearing the magistrate addressed a group of around 20 people in the gallery associated with the victim and her family who had sat through the hearing.
"I appreciate your attendance," she said.
"It's not easy sitting and listening to this evidence."
Mr Parry was bailed with special conditions to appear before the County Court in Melbourne in July.
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