A drug-addicted hit-and-run driver claims he cannot remember carrying a police officer on the bonnet of a stolen car for 30 metres before the senior constable was thrown onto a highway and seriously injured.
Stephen John McCracken nevertheless admitted responsibility for the Monaro Highway incident when he pleaded guilty to three charges in the Queanbeyan Local Court on Tuesday.
These were aggravated dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, failing to stop and assist after vehicle impact, and knowingly driving a stolen car.
The 30-year-old Canberra man faced court via audio-visual link from the John Morony Correctional Centre in western Sydney, and entered the pleas through defence lawyer Taden Kelliher.
An agreed statement of facts shows McCracken travelled with co-accused Jaiden Gardner, 26, and Rebecca Keys, 44, from Canberra to the Snowy Mountains in a white Audi on August 30 last year.
Gardner got out of the car, which had been stolen from the ACT two days earlier, and stormed off in the Nimmitabel area after having an argument with McCracken just before 8pm.
Gardner then stole a white Toyota LandCruiser from outside a Nimmitabel home within minutes, according to police, who spotted both that vehicle and the Audi speeding towards Cooma about 8.14pm.
NSW Police Senior Constable Jason Farrell turned on his lights and sirens in an attempt to stop the LandCruiser, but it performed a U-turn and took off back towards Nimmitabel on the Monaro Highway.
The officer therefore initiated a pursuit, reaching speeds of about 160km/h before Gardner stopped the LandCruiser and got out.
Gardner ran to the Audi, in which McCracken had pulled up nearby, and climbed in as Senior Constable Farrell and a fellow officer left their vehicle and chased him on foot.
The officers were unable to apprehend Gardner before McCracken accelerated in the Audi, hitting Senior Constable Farrell and carrying him about 30 metres on the bonnet.
"[Senior Constable Farrell] was then thrown from the bonnet of the vehicle, landing face down on the road and sustaining serious head injuries," the agreed facts say.
"McCracken then drove off at high speed towards Cooma."
Senior Constable Farrell's fellow officer, who had taken refuge behind the police vehicle to avoid being hit, gave the bleeding and unconscious victim first aid while paramedics raced to the scene.
The injured policeman was subsequently taken to Cooma District Hospital, from which he was airlifted to Canberra Hospital in a serious condition.
Senior Constable Farrell was later found to have suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull and a laceration to the scalp.
He had to take more than eight months off work and cannot remember the collision, which has left him battling prolonged memory loss issues.
McCracken was, meanwhile, arrested in the ACT and extradited to NSW about three weeks after the incident.
He has been behind bars on remand ever since.
"He told police he had no memory of the events as he is addicted to methylamphetamine," the agreed facts state.
Following McCracken's guilty pleas on Tuesday, magistrate Roger Clisdell committed him to the Queanbeyan District Court for sentence.
A sentencing date is likely to be set when the case is mentioned in that court on August 15.
McCracken also pleaded guilty on Tuesday to unrelated charges of supplying methylamphetamine, dealing with the proceeds of crime, possessing a prohibited drug, possessing a knife in public, and failing to appear in court as required.
He committed the first four of those offences in Queanbeyan in 2012, then failed to front court in 2015.
Mr Clisdell intends to sentence the 30-year-old for those crimes on September 6.
