Driver heard thud, court told

Julie Lightfoot

Friday, March 7, 2008

 

AN accused hit-and-run driver whose car ploughed into an Innisfail teenager said he heard a thud but did not investigate because he assumed he had hit a kangaroo or dog.

Brisbane man James Sui Jacobs, 25, told Innisfail Magistrates'Court yesterday, his main concern was damage to his car after hitting something in the darkness and rain.

The court earlier heard how Innisfail teenager Adrian Blom, 19, lost a chunk of one leg.

His face was "covered in blood" when passers-by found him soon after he was hit from behind by a car travelling along the Bruce Highway at Innisfail.

Mr Jacobs has pleaded not guilty to failing to remain at an accident and assist an injured person, and providing false and misleading information.

Yesterday he told the court he saw nothing.

"All of a sudden there was a thud and the windscreen cracked and there was glass on the passenger seat and … on the side of my face," he said.

"I thought 'What the hell was that' and then … I'm lucky whatever it was didn't come through the windscreen."

Asked why he did not return to the accident scene, he said he stopped 10 to 20 seconds later and checked his car but "never gave it any thought to go back and see what I'd hit".

"It never entered my mind it would be a person," Mr Jacobs said.

When his sister rang him two days later about The Cairns Post's front page article on a hit-and-run in Innisfail, Mr Jacobs said he felt sick.

"I was seriously like, 'No it couldn't have been me'," he told the court.

Magistrate Janelle Brassington heard that Mr Jacobs rang police soon afterwards.

Under cross-examination, he denied seeing blue fibres from Mr Blom's jacket on his windscreen.

The court was told he was travelling to Cairns from the Gold Coast and had parked his damaged car outside Cairns Central, and then in a garage shared by four other residents at his sister's unit.

The summary hearing began last month but was adjourned until yesterday.

Ms Brassington will deliver her decision on Monday.

 


<strong>Victim:</strong>  Adrian Blom.

Victim: Adrian Blom.


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