Mother faces drug affected truck driver who killed her partner in crash

The partner of firefighter Drew Cullen has described the truck driver who killed him as selfish and unrepentant.

Susie Smith confronted Albert Cvetkovski at his sentence hearing, two months after he was found guilty of dangerous driving before the fiery crash on Heathcote Road, south of Sydney. 

The 44-year-old was withdrawing from methamphetamine at the time, but tried to blame a pot hole for the accident.

Ms Smith was feeding their 16-month-old daughter when she saw the awful pictures on television and knew immediately her husband wasn’t coming home. 

Holding back tears she told the court of the pain of never being able to marry the love of her life, or have the second child they had talked about.

She also spoke about the impact on their now three-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

“The impact on her is especially significant and somewhat unknown...she misses out on a love that only a daddy, her daddy could give.”

Ms Smith said it had also impacted her career as an Australian target shooter. 

She said that was due to the actions of Cvetkovski who “chose to use methamphetamine, get behind the wheel of his truck and take a gamble on the road…(with) people who had not chosen to partake in his game of chance.”

Mr Cullen’s mother Deidre said “you have loyal family and friends...you had a job...what was so wrong you had to take ice to improve your life?”

“You haven't once looked us in the eye. Is that shame, arrogance…”

The court heard Cvetkovski had been caught with drugs before and was on good behaviour bonds at the time of the crash for stealing offences. 

He was jailed for a minimum four months today for breaching those bonds.

But he faces a much longer sentence, a maximum of ten years in jail, when he is sentenced over the crash later this month.