An inquest into the death of a 19-year-old woman who was killed after being thrown from a ute in western Queensland heard her boyfriend at the time gave multiple versions of events after the fatal crash.
In August 2017, Madeleine Moroney had been drinking with Jack Dalton-Edgley and other friends at the Windorah Rodeo, before the pair left in his four-wheel drive.
They were driving on Ourel Station, the property where Mr Dalton-Edgley had been working, when the ute left the road and rolled.
Ms Moroney was ejected from the cabin and became pinned underneath the vehicle. She died at the scene.
A coronial inquiry into the teenager's death and the circumstances around the accident is being held in Brisbane.
The central coroner has been tasked with investigating who was driving the car when it overturned.
Differing accounts of who was driving
Mr Dalton-Edgley, who has legal representation, has maintained he was the passenger at the time of the crash.
Sergeant Wade Fraser, who was involved in the investigation, told the court it could not be determined which side of the car Ms Moroney was sitting on at the time.
"I can't definitively say which seat she was in or wasn't in," he said.
The court heard the ute had rolled approximately 1.5 times and Sergeant Fraser said this would likely cause Ms Moroney to move about "quite excessively".
"Once the vehicle is rolling, there are forces impacting on that vehicle and people get thrown around," he told the inquest.
The court heard there was some evidence that pointed to Ms Moroney not wearing a seatbelt and that she had likely been thrown from the open driver's side window, but neither were conclusive findings.
At the time, Mr Dalton-Edgley told police and several others that he was not the driver, but differing versions were provided about what happened, including that he and Ms Moroney swapped seats during the journey, the court heard.
Body-worn camera vision was played to the inquest of a man being interviewed by police in the lead-up to the investigation.
In the video, the man tells an officer he spoke with Mr Dalton-Edgley after the crash and he had admitted to being the driver.
'Help me, the car's on top of Maddie'
Station owner Helen Commens told the court Mr Dalton-Edgley had run into her home at around 2am on the morning of the crash and woken her.
"He said, 'help me. The car's on top of Maddie,'" Ms Commens said.
She denied telling a friend, who was a police officer, that Mr Dalton-Edgley had actually said to her: "I've rolled the car."
"I do not recall he said the pronoun 'I'," she said.
Ms Commens admitted she was reluctant to give investigators a statement at the time and said she wanted no involvement in the inquest.
"It was an awful thing to happen on our property. I just didn't want to be part of it all," she said.
The court heard at the time there was speculation about the crash by people in the "small town".
"There was a lot of conversation and questioning about who was driving," Ms Commens said.
"I think people try to put things together … to solve what happened."
The inquest, which is expected to run for three days, continues.
