A recidivist drug-affected, speeding and disqualified driver who fled after crashing a rental truck with fatal consequences in Noble Park North has been jailed.
Daniel Hudson, 34, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to culpable driving causing the death of the truck’s passenger, 47-year-old Noble Park woman Janelle Spalding.
He also pled to failing to render her assistance as she was trapped in the truck with severe injuries and unable to breathe.
It was an act that the sentencing judge labelled “cowardly, disgraceful and inhumane”.
Just before 3am on 12 February 2024, Hudson and Ms Spalding drove along a Jacksons Road 60 km/h zone on a run for cigarettes.
At about 67-70 km/h, Hudson steered left, applied emergency brakes and the passenger side of the truck veered onto a nature strip and driveway.
He straightened the truck, and its front passenger corner crashed into a wooden power pole.
While the injured Ms Spalding was trapped, a seemingly unscathed Hudson told a witness to “call triple-0, call the ambulance” and ran away.
Police, with the help of a tracker dog, found Hudson lying behind a hedge on Princes Highway.
Judge Doyle said the culpable driving offence was based on Hudson being incapable of controlling the truck due to his drug use.
Blood samples showed a “biologically significant” amount (0.19 mg/L) of methylamphetamine in Hudson’s system.
An expert forensic physician stated that meth-positive drivers were 19 times as likely to cause a collision and posed a “significant risk to the public”, Judge Doyle said.
The veering of the truck was characteristic of meth use, the expert opined.
Hudson also tested positive for GHB at a level “likely to impact driving” – though the level would have been higher at the time of the crash.
The judge accepted that Hudson’s flight from the scene and unfitness for police interview were also “products” of his drug taking.
Hudson’s substantial criminal history since 2011 was noted.
It included assaults, drugs, dishonesty, family violence and a “bad record for driving offences” such as multiple disqualified driving, drug driving, car thefts and suspended driving incidents.
As a result he’d served several jail terms, as well as “entirely unsuccessful” community correction orders and drug treatment orders.
A month before the crash, Hudson was put on a community correction order for an array of offences including drug driving and disqualified driving.
His licence had been further disqualified at the time.
“You must have well understood the seriousness of driving a motor vehicle affected by drugs,” Judge Doyle said.
“If you had only complied with the orders made against you by the courts Ms Spalding’s death could have been avoided.”
Born in Dandenong, Hudson was raised by his grandparents due to his parents’ drug addictions.
Despite his unstable upbringing and entrenched drug addiction, Hudson’s moral culpability was “substantial” in this case, the judge found.
Judge Doyle said it was possible that the crash had been a “wake-up call”, but still rated Hudson’s rehabilitative prospects as “very guarded”.
“If you resume using drugs when you are released, it seems to me a near certainty you will commit further serious offences”.
Hudson was jailed for nine years and 10 months, with a non-parole period of six years and eight months.
His term includes 679 days of pre-sentence detention.
He was disqualified from driving for four years.
