Collision experts disagree in ACT trial of Ameen Hamdan charged with culpable driving causing death

An ACT Supreme Court trial had heard that in the early hours of October 31 in 2020, Ameen Hamdan was driving a Nissan Navara that carried his girlfriend, 16-year-old Alexis Saaghy, in the front-passenger seat and two friends in the back seats.

Hamdan, 18 at the time, was driving along Longmore Crescent in Wanniassa in wet conditions as the group spent the night socialising.

Prosecutors allege that Hamdan, who was not intoxicated, was speeding at 81km/h-100km/h when the car started to slide on a left-hand bend before the vehicle collided with a tree.

All four occupants were injured with Alexis sustaining severe head trauma, including a fractured skull, and internal injuries.

She lost consciousness and was taken to the Canberra Hospital.

Her injuries were deemed unsurvivable and she was put on life support; however, she died after three days as the support was turned off.

The court had been shown a video recorded by Alexis inside the vehicle in which the song Tokyo Drift played and the accused calling himself the "drift king".

The trial of Hamdan, who pleaded not guilty to culpable driving causing death and culpable driving causing grievous bodily harm, continued on Wednesday when the defence called on road-safety expert and civil engineer Nigel McDonald.

Mr McDonald said he disagreed with a number of factors - primarily with the calculations of speeds - as concluded in a police collision report.

"I don't believe that the travel speed was largely in excess of 50 [km/h]," Mr McDonald said.

He said the vehicle was was going less than the speed limit during the 14-second video and his "crush analysis" determined it was going 35km/h-41km/h at the time of impact.

Mr McDonald said the latter calculation was based on national and international data and reports.

His evidence, which included two reports of his own, came following the prosecution's case.

Senior Constable William Stevenson said he conducted an analysis of the crash based on the police collision report, which estimated the Navara going at 81km/h to 100km/h at the bend before colliding with the tree.

The officer said the video was recorded on Longmore Crescent and calculated it to be 1.23 kilometres from the crash scene.

During cross examination by defence lawyer John Purnell SC, the officer admitted he did not measure the speed of the Navara between those two points.

"Even blind Freddy can see that when you look at the video, that the vehicle is crawling almost," Mr Purnell said.

"It's going below speed [limit]."

Prosecutor Soraya Saikal-Skea in her opening statement on Monday said the case was not that "the accused intended to cause a collision", but that the jury "can be readily satisfied" the accused drove in a culpable manner.

Ms Saikal-Skea said this was based on a number of factors, including the alleged speeding and "sustained period beforehand where drifting was taking place" before the crash.

The jury trial before Justice Michael Elkaim continues.

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