An Indigenous teen walking by the side of a road had no time to react before being hit from behind by a swerving ute which then fled the scene, a murder trial has been told.
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Emily Jane Bayes-Morton had picked up her son's girlfriend from school in Nowra on the NSW south coast when she witnessed a white ute drive over 18-year-old Taj Jared Hart on February 24.
The 20-year-old driver Jayden Walmsley-Hume and his 40-year-old mother Katie Walmsley are on trial for murder in the NSW Supreme Court.
"The ute that was in front of us accelerated over a short distance and they went to the left up onto the grass and they hit him from behind," Ms Bayes-Morton told the jury on Thursday.
"I don't think he ever turned to look towards the traffic."
On police bodyworn video footage played to the court, Ms Bayes-Morton is heard telling officers the ute had "collected" Mr Hart.
"He was facing the opposite way - didn't even see them coming," she said.
Crown prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe previously told the jury that the mother and son deliberately struck Mr Hart with their Mitsubishi Triton as retribution for past violence between them.
This included an incident in January 2022 when the 18-year-old fractured Walmsley-Hume's elbow with a metal pole.
Ms Bayes-Morton told the court on Thursday that she heard a sound as the ute impacted Mr Hart and was then forced to slam on the brakes as the vehicle swerved back onto the road in front of her before driving off.
"It had gone over the top of him and he was trying to get back on his feet," she told the jury.
Getting out of her car to help, she told him to lie down while other bystanders arrived to help, and the police and paramedics were called.
Both Walmsley-Hume and his mother have admitted wrongdoing after running down Mr Hart but have claimed their actions were not murder.
They have pleaded not guilty to murder, with Walmsley also pleading not guilty to an alternative count of being an accessory after the murder.
Ms Ratcliffe told jurors that the 40-year-old had helped clean out the ute before it was seized by police and had used fake names to arrange accommodation in various hotels, motels and caravan parks for weeks after the collision to help her son evade detection.
The pair were on the run until their arrest on April 7, 2022, the jury was told.
Walmsley-Hume's barrister Sharyn Hall SC said her client accepted that he was guilty of manslaughter but denied he had any murderous intent.
"He was not trying to kill Taj Hart and he was not trying to cause him serious injury," she said.
The 20-year-old had fled after the fatal collision as emotions ran high in the community, Ms Hall told the Wollongong court.
His father's house was firebombed a day after and a number of threats were made, jurors heard.
Barrister Edward Anderson, representing Walmsley, said his client was not blameless either.
She accepted that she "improperly, inexcusably" aided her son to avoid police detection.
However, she denied that she formed any agreement with her son to murder or cause really serious injury to Mr Hart.
The best the jury could do, even after hearing the evidence, was to guess, speculate or be suspicious about the existence of any such agreement but it could not find this beyond reasonable doubt, Mr Anderson said.
The trial before Justice Robertson Wright continues on Friday.
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Australian Associated Press
