faced a bail court less than 24 hours later<\/a>, where he did not apply for bail which was formally refused.<\/p>\nMr Samarasinghe appeared via audiovisual link in Newcastle Local Court today, after his lawyers lodged a bail review application earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prosecutors opposed bail, arguing the accused posed an “unacceptable risk” to the community.<\/p>\n
The court heard there was the potential for more charges to be laid, pending ongoing police investigations.<\/p>\n
Injuries ‘very serious indeed’<\/p>\n
Mr Samarasinghe’s legal representative argued his client had no history of violence and submitted there was evidence he had sustained a suspected spinal injury.<\/p>\n
Judge Trevor Khan said Mr Samarasinghe had no history of non-compliance but noted a “limited” traffic record including three speeding incidents.<\/p>\n
He also described the severity of injuries to those who gathered to wave the Knights bus off, including a child with a brain injury.<\/p>\n
“Some of those injuries are very serious indeed,” Judge Khan said.<\/p>\n
“Whether it can be described as luck, but it certainly appeared on the basis of reporting that at least two of the victims were at some risk of death.”<\/p>\n
In granting conditional bail, Judge Khan noted a custodial sentence was likely if the accused was found guilty but said he was bound to fairly consider bail.<\/p>\n
“It seems to me that this is a case where emotion should not rule the day nor should public opinion,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I am bound by my oath of the provisions of the bail act.”<\/p>\n
Hunter New England Health confirmed the conditions of the 10 patients had improved and three remained in care in stable conditions.<\/p>\n
Calls have been growing for a state-led trauma response to assist the thousands of potential witnesses to the crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Strict bail conditions<\/p>\n
Mr Samarasinghe’s bail conditions include abiding by two curfews while living at his mother’s address in Sydney.<\/p>\n
He will be obliged to report to police daily between 8am and 6pm and is banned from entering Newcastle except to attend court.<\/p>\n
He is also prohibited from contacting those who were passengers of the vehicle and must surrender any passports.<\/p>\n
He is banned from consuming alcohol or drugs and is not allowed to enter the driver’s seat of a vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He will face court again later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 18-year-old accused of driving a car that hit and injured 10 Knights fans in Newcastle has been\u00a0granted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,1154,489082,489081,482048,7992,10668,489080,85,481759],"class_list":["post-921325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crash","tag-grand-final-crash-accused","tag-grand-final-parade-crash","tag-indika-bambrick-samarasinghe","tag-knights","tag-newcastle","tag-newcastle-knights-crash","tag-sports","tag-wallsend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n