NSW: Courtroom shocked by film of Kogarah bus stop carnage
01 Dec 2008 12:39 PM
SYDNEY, Dec 1 AAP - Footage of the bus stop crash that killed a 20-year-old TAFE student in Sydney's south last year drew gasps of shock in the NSW Coroner's Court on Monday.
Fashion student Emma Hansen died and 11 others were injured when learner driver Rose Deng mistook the accelerator for the brake during a driving lesson at Kogarah in March last year.
Her car mounted the curb at Railway Parade and slammed into a bus queue.
A charge of negligent driving occasioning death against Ms Deng, 42, was conditionally dismissed in January this year under the Mental Health Act.
There were gasps when footage of the crash was played to the Coroner's Court on the first day of an inquest into Ms Hansen's death .
Ms Hansen's mother, Lynne Hansen, was present in court.
CCTV footage taken from the nearby ANZ Bank shows two women pushing strollers along the footpath, seconds before they were run down by a red car that mounted the curb.
Several people were shown lying in the street amid debris.
Detective Sergeant John Kelly, the officer in charge of the crash investigation, told the court shoes, mobile phones, thongs, sushi rolls, a white blanket and a tipped-over pram were left strewn in the street in the car's wake.
Clumps of bloodied hair were found stuck to the car's shattered windscreen, he said.
The driver, Ms Deng, was visibly distraught at the scene.
"She was physically pulling her hair out of her head," Det Sgt Kelly told the court.
"She had to be physically restrained by police to prevent her from committing further self-harm."
Ms Deng's lawyer has previously told the court his client had endured torture in her Sudanese homeland before arriving in Australia in 1994 and that the crash had exacerbated an unspecified long-term "mental condition".
A mental health report has quoted Ms Deng as saying that if it were not for her children she would have killed herself after the accident.
She is undergoing psychiatric treatment and did not appear in court today.
The inquest before Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson continues.
