Truck driver's bizarre display outside court before weeping on the stand
A truck driver who killed a young man south of Sydney says he was screwing a lid onto a bottle of Fanta when he careered onto the wrong side of the Hume Highway.
In a bizarre display outside court today, Jeffrey Bates, 65 smoked a cigarette and looked journalists up and down.
But inside court, he wiped away tears as he apologised to Tyson Fardy's family for the 2017 accident.
Jeffrey Bates. 9News
Tyson Fardy was a passenger in a ute when the B-double crossed south bound lanes and a median strip and struck them. 9News
"I'm so sorry it happened, if I could take it back I certainly would, I'm just so sorry," Bates said.
Mr Fardy, 23 was a passenger in a ute when the B-Double crossed south bound lanes and a median strip and struck them.
Wearing a picture of her son on her t-shirt, Mr Fardy's mother Jodie wept as she told the court her life was shattered that day.
Bates wept inside court. 9News
"I'm broken. I hate it, I'm never going to be the same," she said.
"We now spend birthdays, Christmas, special occasions in a place no parents want to go."
The crash on the Hume Highway in 2017. 9News
The Crown argued this was a case more serious than momentary inattention, calling it "a calculated risk taken by a professional truck driver."
Bates will be sentenced next month.
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