“It haunts me seeing that car wrapped around that tree.”
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That is what Vera Coulthard told the Bendigo County Court about losing her daughter Sheridan Coulthard in a fatal car crash at Echuca.
Jake Cartledge, 25, of Echuca-Moama, pleaded guilty to two counts of dangerous driving causing the death of 26-year-old Sheridan — his partner — and his 11-year-old brother Billy Cartledge.
Sheridan was in the front passenger seat and Billy was in the back of a highly modified 1985 VK Holden Commodore Cartledge was driving on the Murray Valley Hwy on January 14, 2024.
Prosecutor Chrisanthi Paganis told the court Cartledge, who was 23 at the time, accelerated heavily on the highway, causing the back wheels to spin and lose traction.
He lost control of the car on the highway between Mt Terrick Rd and Wharparilla Dve, causing it to cross on to the wrong side of the road.
The car went down an embankment, collided with trees and caught fire.
Sheridan and Billy died at the scene, while Cartledge was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
The court heard they were on their way home from taking Billy out for lunch, to keep him occupied after Wayne Cartledge, their father with terminal cancer, had collapsed and been taken to hospital.
Multiple emotional victim impact statements from Sheridan and Billy’s families were read to the court.
Sheridan’s mother Ms Coulthard described the day of the crash as “the day our lives were shattered”.
Through tears, she told the court when she arrived at the scene, she knew her daughter couldn’t have survived.
“I still can’t drive past the crash scene ... it’s too traumatic,” she said.
“It kills me she took the brunt of it.”
Ms Coulthard said she shared a special bond with Sheridan, and her last moments would’ve been filled with terror because she was “petrified of speed”.
“She wasn’t just my daughter, she was my best friend,” she said.
“She was taken from us way too soon for a few seconds of thrill.”
Sheridan’s father, Gavan Coulthard, said the day of the crash was the day he died inside.
“There’s not a day I don’t cry,” he said.
“I knew she would’ve been crushed beyond recognition.”
In her emotional victim impact statement, Billy and Jake’s mother Kylie Cartledge told the court her family’s lives had been “decimated within seconds”, and the accident was a “horrific scene my mind cannot unravel”.
She said she’d been in an “impossibly complex situation”, and had only felt like the accused’s mother, rather than the mother of a boy who’d died.
“(I remember) watching the life leave my little boy’s body,” she said.
“Every day is a reminder of what we’ve lost, of what we’ll never have again.”
Through tears, Ms Cartledge shared her experience of losing Billy, Sheridan, and her husband, who had terminal cancer, all within 16 weeks, and the fear of losing Jake when he goes to prison.
Ms Cartledge said motor sports and drag racing was their family hobby, with Sunday drives in classic cars being something they did every week.
“(My husband’s) fall was the only reason they came to be at the house,” she said.
“We most likely all would’ve been in that car if not for the fall.”
She said Jake had been “broken in body and spirit” after losing the “two people in this world he loves the most”.
“He never would have done anything deliberate to hurt them,” Ms Cartledge said.
“Don’t take him for so long that I lose him too.”
Clinic and forensic psychologist Patrick Newton said Cartledge had been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder after being exposed to the “horrifying, gruesome scene”.
Mr Newton said Cartledge’s mental health was likely to deteriorate in prison, and his relationships with the three people who died “intensified” the level of distress and horror he was experiencing.
Cartledge’s defence barrister Anthony Lewis said his client had acknowledged he was responsible for the deaths, and as a result had since been suffering psychological trauma, which he will endure for the rest of his life.
Mr Lewis said although the heavy acceleration was intentional, the power skid that followed was not, and Cartledge tried to control the car by braking as it went off the road.
He also told the court Cartledge had Barrett’s esophagus, an ongoing serious health condition which can lead to the same type of cancer his father died from.
Cartledge will be sentenced on Tuesday, December 2.