By Aap
Victoria’s justice system has been criticised as favouring perpetrators over victims by the devastated families of four police killed on Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway.
While a Sydney-based transport executive was jailed for reckless workplace behaviour leading up to the April 2020 crash, the Melbourne man who allowed the truckie to drive while high on drugs avoided prison on Wednesday.
“Victoria doesn’t have a justice system, it has a legal system where outcomes seem pre-determined, where the guilty have all the rights and the victims have none,” Constable Josh Prestney’s father Andrew said outside court.
Lyndhurst-based Connect Logistics supervisor Simiona Tuteru, 52, was sentenced to community work almost four years after he allowed Mohinder Singh to get behind the wheel.
After a sleepless night, Singh arrived at the company’s Lyndhurst depot and asked Tuteru to break a witch’s curse on him, since his boss was a church pastor.
He was high on methamphetamine and having visions.
The supervisor placed his hands on Singh’s head and recited a prayer, before asking him to drive one truckload to Thomastown.
Singh drove the truck down the Eastern Freeway and veered into an emergency lane.
He hit three cars, including two police vehicles.
Const Prestney, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and Constable Glen Humphris, were all killed.
The court proceedings against Tuteru have been plagued by delays.
He was initially charged with four counts of manslaughter, but they were dropped before he was due to face trial in favour of heavy vehicle offences.
In another twist, former Supreme Court justice Lex Lasry put a permanent stay on the case as he claimed the court process had been used oppressively by prosecutors.
The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully appealed this, allowing the case to continue.
Justice James Elliott cited the delays as one factor in handing Tuteru a three-year community corrections order.
He said the prosecution had filed five different indictments against Tuteru since he was first charged in August 2020, noting the drawn out process could not be described as “optimal or efficient”.
Additionally, prosecutors did not call for Tuteru to be given jail time in pre-sentence hearings.
He found Singh, who had his prison term reduced to give evidence against Tuteru, was a very unreliable witness.
The judge acknowledged the “devastating, life-changing and irreversible” impact the crash had on the families and friends of the four police.
However, he said his job was not to sentence Tuteru for their deaths, but for posing a risk.
Tuteru, who walked free from court on Wednesday morning, was ordered to perform 200 hours of community work.
Outside court, Mr Prestney, his wife Belinda, and Sen Const Taylor’s husband Stuart Shulz read out a statement expressing their “anger, dismay, disillusionment and disappointment at the sentence”.
“How is it that the national manager of this trucking company, who was nearly 900km away in Sydney, can get three years’ jail – but the supervisor, who was right on the spot and could have avoided this tragedy, walks away with just a slap on the wrist,” Mr Prestney said.
“Our son and his colleagues deserve better, but unfortunately this is Victoria where the system is totally broken.”
Mrs Prestney said the justice system needed to become more centred around victims.
“We get to read a victim impact statement, but it does not take into account the fact that this man’s actions – or lack thereof – to do his job properly, resulted in the deaths of four people,” she said.
“This shows complete contempt for the Victorian public who use the roads.”
The families said they had not received any apologies from either Tuteru or the trucking company.
Singh is serving an 18-and-a-half-year jail term, which was reduced from 22 years on appeal, while Connect executive Cris Large was jailed by a NSW court for up to three years in January.
