A P-plater was drifting and gave himself the "drift king" moniker before he lost control of his vehicle at excessive speed then crashed into a tree, causing his 16-year-old girlfriend's death, prosecutors allege.
Ameen Hamdan fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Monday for trial after pleading not guilty to culpable driving causing death and culpable driving causing grievous bodily harm.
The court heard that in the early hours of October 31 in 2020, Hamdan was driving a Nissan Navara that carried his girlfriend, 16-year-old Alexis Saaghy, in the front passenger seat and two friends, 16 and 18, 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.
Crown prosecutors allege that Hamdan, who was not intoxicated, was driving at more than the 50km/h speed limit at one point and the vehicle slid before colliding with a tree.
All four occupants were injured with Alexis sustaining severe head trauma and internal injuries.
She was taken to the Canberra Hospital where she died a few days later.
Hamdan appeared to have suffered a concussion and an eye injury while one of the back-seat passengers suffered internal injuries and needed surgery for one arm.
The other back-seat passenger, 16 at the time, was the first to give evidence in court and described how he tried to help his three friends after initially panicking.
"I heard Alexis struggling to breathe and she was choking on her own blood," he said.
"I put her head down so she wouldn't choke.
"I hopped out of the car and Ameen's coming in and out of consciousness."
The witness said that leading up to the crash, the accused called himself "Ameen Hamdan the drift king" in a video recorded by Alexis inside the vehicle while the Tokyo Drift song from the 2006 Fast and Furious movie played.
That video, played to the court, also included the witness cheering.
He told the court that Hamdan "would've been maybe doing drifts" before the video but not done on Longmore Crescent.
During cross examination, he admitted his most accurate recollection of the incident would be when he told police shortly after the incident as opposed to his evidence in court.
The former evidence included him not being sure about how the crash occurred and that the accused was driving normally at the time.
The other backseat passenger, 18 at the time, and a Longmore Crescent resident also gave evidence on Monday.
Prosecutor Soraya Saikal-Skea in her opening statement said "this case is a very tragic one" because they were all friends.
"Any normal person hearing about a case like this can probably see that it's a tragedy on many levels," she said.
The prosecutor 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" about 1.2km from the crash scene.
The court heard other prosecution witnesses included a forensic medical doctor and a collision expert, who will give evidence that Hamdan was speeding between 81km/h to 100km/h when the car began to slide before the crash.
Defence lawyer John Purnell SC in his opening said it was a "tragic accident" and Hamdan did not have drugs or alcohol in his system at the time.
"On the best evidence that we will say you should accept ... he was driving normally and not speeding," Mr Purnell said.
He said they would call their own collision expert, Nigel McDonald, whose "expertise in this area is almost the best you can get in Australia".
Mr Purnell said Mr McDonald, who has prepared more than 1000 collision reconstructions, "disagrees completely" with the police expert.
Hamdan also faces the back-up charges of negligent driving causing death and negligent driving causing grievous bodily harm.
The jury trial, which was attended by families of both Hamdan and Alexis on Monday, before Justice Michael Elkaim continues.
