A truck driver has asked to begin serving prison time before he is sentenced, as he struggles to come to terms with driving a 62-tonne vehicle with faulty brakes that crashed into a school bus and seriously injured scores of students.
Brett Russell, an experienced truckie from Croydon who held a heavy vehicle licence for 20 years, knew the engine brakes on his truck and trailer brakes were defective but decided to drive anyway.
He knew if he had to stop suddenly for an emergency, he was “in big trouble”, his barrister Richard Edney told Victoria’s County Court on Friday.
“As soon as I’d seen the sign ‘road work ahead’, I had absolutely no brakes, you’re 62-tonne and you’re going down a hill and you run out of air – nothing is going to stop that truck,” Russell told police during his interview.
“Once I stopped and looked … I couldn’t stop thinking about the bus.”
Russell hit the rear of a bus carrying 32 people, including 27 Loreto College Ballarat students on their way to Melbourne’s airport to go to NASA camp in the US, on September 21, 2022.
No one died in the crash, but most were taken to hospital and 10 passengers suffered serious injuries.
Dozens of the injured passengers, and their family members, addressed court this week as Russell faced a three-day pre-sentence hearing.
He knew the engine brakes in the truck were not working, but he did not change trucks, the court was told.
When Russell went to pick up two trailers, to drive them from Nhill in northwest Victoria to Melbourne, he was told that neither of them had brakes either.
“It is to Brett Russell’s everlasting regret that he did not act on that information and that he did drive the truck that day,” Mr Edney said on Friday.
The defence barrister said his client’s actions after the crash, including early admissions to police about the brakes and his pleas of guilty, had revealed “a fundamental decency about Brett Russell”.
“He has not attempted to avoid responsibility for his actions,” Mr Edney said.
“He is aware acutely, as we all are, that his catastrophic mistake has had long-term, enduring catastrophic consequences.”
Mr Edney said the 63-year-old, who was on bail, had voluntarily surrendered himself to custody in April.
“He accepted he would be serving a term of imprisonment, that is another thing to his credit,” he said.
He said Russell would likely be deported back to New Zealand at the end of his sentence, because he’s facing more than 12 months behind bars.
Russell pleaded guilty to 12 offences including 10 counts of negligently causing serious injury, which each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Prosecutor Jim Shaw said his offending was objectively serious and he had high moral culpability, since as an experienced truckie he knew he needed to be cautious.
“He knew he couldn’t stop this vehicle, he couldn’t even slow it down,” he said.
“He fully understands the skill involved in driving a truck like this, and the risk of dire consequences if something were to go wrong.”
Russell will be sentenced at a later date.
