Victoria's justice system is broken and favours perpetrators over victims, say the devastated families of four police killed on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway.
While a Sydney-based transport executive was jailed for reckless workplace behaviour leading up to the April 2020 crash, the Melbourne man who allowed the truckie to drive while high on drugs avoided prison on Wednesday.
"Victoria doesn't have a justice system, it has a legal system where outcomes seem pre-determined, where the guilty have all the rights and the victims have none," Constable Josh Prestney's father Andrew said outside court.
Connect Logistics supervisor Simiona Tuteru, 52, was sentenced to 200 hours community work and walked free from court almost four years after he allowed Mohinder Singh to get behind the wheel.
After a sleepless night, Singh arrived at the company's Lyndhurst depot and asked Tuteru to break a witch's curse on him, since his boss was a church pastor.
He was high on methamphetamine and having visions.
The supervisor walked with Singh to his car and searched for items a witch might leave behind, including hair and voodoo dolls.
Tuteru placed his hands on Singh's head and said "in Jesus' name, I cast a spell out of you", before asking him to drive a truckload to Thomastown.
Singh fell asleep at the wheel as he drove the truck down the Eastern Freeway.
It veered into the emergency lane and hit three cars, including two police vehicles that had pulled over Porsche driver Richard Pusey.
Const Prestney, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and Constable Glen Humphris were all killed.
Tuteru was initially charged with four counts of manslaughter but they were dropped before he faced trial in favour of heavy vehicle offences.
Former Supreme Court justice Lex Lasry then put a permanent stay on the case as he claimed the court process had been used oppressively by prosecutors, which was successfully appealed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Justice James Elliott cited the delays as one factor in handing Tuteru a three-year community corrections order.
He said the prosecution had filed five different indictments against Tuteru since August 2020 and the drawn-out process could not be described as "optimal or efficient".
He found Singh, who had his prison term reduced to give evidence against Tuteru, was a very unreliable witness and noted prosecutors were not calling for him to be jailed.
Justice Elliott acknowledged the "devastating, life-changing and irreversible" impact the "utterly tragic" crash had on the victims' families.
However, his job was not to sentence Tuteru for their deaths but for exposing them to risk of death or serious injury.
Outside court, Mr Prestney, his wife Belinda, and Sen Const Taylor's husband Stuart Shulz spoke of their "anger, dismay, disillusionment and disappointment".
"How is it that the national manager of this trucking company, who was nearly 900km away in Sydney, can get three years' jail but the supervisor, who was right on the spot and could have avoided this tragedy, walks away with just a slap on the wrist," Mr Prestney said.
"Our son and his colleagues deserve better but unfortunately this is Victoria where the system is totally broken."
Mrs Prestney said the justice system needed to become more centred around victims.
"We get to read a victim impact statement but it does not take into account the fact this man's actions - or lack thereof - to do his job properly, resulted in the deaths of four people," she said.
"This shows complete contempt for the Victorian public who use the roads."
The judge said Tuteru and his wife pray every day for the families but Mr Prestney said they never received an apology from him or the trucking company.
Singh is serving an 18-and-a-half-year term reduced from 22 years on appeal, while Connect executive Cris Large was jailed by a NSW court for up to three years in January.
Australian Associated Press
