Traffic controller in court after cyclist seriously injured in race crash

The court was told the 38-year-old received a spinal injury and a brain injury in the crash.

Mohammad Ali Abdulamir, 30, of Shepparton, faced Shepparton Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, December 12, charged with negligently causing serious injury, perjury, reckless conduct endangering life and reckless conduct endangering serious injury.

Mr Abdulamir was a traffic controller in the race that was part of the 2023 Australian Cycling Masters and Junior Road Cycling Championships which were being held on the roads around Dookie.

His defence counsel unsuccessfully applied to the court for summary jurisdiction to have the matter remain in the Magistrates’ Court rather than being elevated to the higher County Court, with it instead proceeding immediately to a committal in the Magistrates’ Court.

In the summary jurisdiction application, the court heard about the crash on Dookie-Nalinga Rd at Dookie at noon on September 21 last year, where Ms Carey-Norton collided with the front of a truck that was on the closed road during a cycling race.

She was competing in a 15km time trial event at the time, with cyclists being released from the starting line one minute apart.

After the crash, Ms Carey-Norton was taken to Goulburn Valley Heath with life-threatening injuries, before being flown to Melbourne’s The Alfred hospital in a coma, and then later transferred to The Austin hospital.

Prosecutor Peter Botros said Mr Abdulamir was a traffic controller at GAME Traffic and Contracting and was located on the intersection at New Dookie Rd and Dookie-Nalinga Rd where the crash occurred.

The court heard Mr Abdulamir stopped a truck driver who was driving a semi-trailer with large agricultural machinery at the road block and told him he would have to do a U-turn.

The prosecutor alleges that when the driver said it was not possible, Mr Abdulamir waved the truck into the intersection, which is where it was when Ms Carey-Norton came down a hill and crashed into the front of it.

The prosecution also alleges Mr Abdulamir committed perjury in his statement to police when he told the truck driver not to enter the intersection and screamed at him “where are you going”, when the truck started to roll forward.

Mr Botros said dashcam footage from the truck captured part of the conversation and Mr Abdulamir going in front of the truck and waving it on to the road.

The court heard the truck driver was the focus of the investigation until the dashcam footage was viewed by police.

During the summary jurisdiction application, Mr Abdulamir’s defence barrister Anthony Pyne said while he conceded it was a serious incident and the consequences were “life-changing”, he said there was no evidence of planning and it was a “response to difficult circumstances he (Mr Abdulamir) found himself in”.

Mr Pyne also said the perjury charge was “at the lowest end of seriousness”.

However, Mr Botros argued against this, saying it was a “significant perjury” and that it was fortunate the truck’s dashcam had captured the footage.

A committal hearing started immediately after the summary jurisdiction application was finalised, with truck driver, John Michael Weldon, of Moama, giving evidence.

Mr Weldon told the court he was carrying the front end of a harvester on his semi-trailer to a farm in Devenish on the day of the crash and that he had been stopped earlier near Cosgrove at a road closed where he had been told two ways he could go, including straight on from where he was.

He drove down Cashel Rd and said there was no detour sign when he came to a T-intersection at Dookie-Nalinga Rd, so he chose the way that looked shorter.

Mr Weldon said when he came to the New Dookie Rd intersection where Mr Abdulamir was stationed, he was told he had to do a U-turn.

He said he said to Mr Abdulamir “where can I do a U-turn with a load this size” and he “wasn’t very understanding”.

“I was focusing on how I was going to get out of that situation,” Mr Weldon said.

He said the only feasible option was to turn on to New Dookie Rd before going back the way he came, as he thought the other option he could see of “reversing several kilometres back down the road to the last intersection was “dangerous” as it was hilly and traffic was coming in the other direction.

When asked by defence counsel if Mr Abdulamir had “given any indication he could go on to the road”, Mr Weldon said he could not recall.

The committal hearing continues on Thursday, December 5.