A COUNTY Court judge has told jury members in the case against a Wodonga truck driver accused of racing a steam train they should not be influenced by media coverage of another level crossing crash in western Victoria on Thursday.
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Judge David Morrow told the jury in the case against Daniel James Murphy in the County Court at Wangaratta yesterday they should concentrate on evidence presented to them and ignore coverage of an incident near Lismore on Thursday morning in which a truck driver died after his semi-trailer was crushed by a goods train.
“The level crossing accident in the early hours of yesterday morning generated a lot of media attention; talk back radio and the like, the sort of venue where a lot of wild comments might be made,” Judge Morrow said.
“At the end of this trial I want your decision to be based only on what you have heard in this courtroom.”
Veronica Rothwell, the sole survivor of the four occupants of the locomotive cabin in the multiple fatal accident on October 13, 2002, involving the steam train and a truck driven by Mr Murphy, yesterday told the court just before the collision she recalled driver Ian Petterson saying the train was slowing because they were approaching Benalla.
Ms Rothwell said she could remember only a “white flash” and the train lifting as the accident happened and nothing else until she regained consciousness.
She had been thrown from the cabin where she had been sitting on the fireman’s seat and had suffered serious burns that required a long rehabilitation.
Ms Rothwell said she remembered waving to two young girls in a utility on the road but she did not recall seeing a truck or trailers passing the train.
Stephen Dalton, of Corio, the conductor on the steam train, which was carrying 48 passengers back from a wedding said he had been in the third carriage as the train approached Benalla.
Mr Dalton said the train’s whistle had been blown by the driver at people gathered alongside the route and at “nearly every level crossing”.
Mr Dalton’s wife, Sheena Dalton, told the court she had noticed a truck alongside the train just before the collision but had not told police what she had seen until July 20, 2004.
Mr Murphy, 32, has pleaded not guilty of three counts of culpable driving and negligently causing serious injury.
The hearing resumes at Wangaratta on Monday afternoon.
