The driver charged over a fatal crash at Strathmerton that killed five people in April allegedly had cannabis in his system.
Christopher Dillon Joannidis, 29, has been charged with five counts of driving in a dangerous manner causing death after a crash on the corner of the Murray Valley Hwy and Labuan Rd on April 20.
Cobram’s Debbie Markey, 60, and four international workers — three women and a man, who were all aged in their 20s and from Asian countries, Pin-Yu Wang, Hsin-Yu Chen, Wai Yan Lam and Zih-Yao Chen — died in the crash between Mr Joannidis’s car, a ute and a truck.
A prosecutor told Shepparton Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, August 30 of laboratory analysis that had been returned since Mr Joannidis last appeared in court.
The results indicated Mr Joannidis had cannabis in his system, the prosecutor said.
There had been conjecture about whether there were drugs in his system, after a preliminary oral fluid drug test done by police when he was pulled over by them before the crash returned a positive result for cannabis; however, a second roadside test did not show a positive result.
The prosecutor said Mr Joannidis “had admitted to smoking one joint” a couple of days before the crash.
In a preliminary brief at a bail application soon after the crash, police alleged Mr Joannidis was driving his Mercedes north on Labuan Rd when he failed to stop at a ‘give way’ sign.
Police said his vehicle struck the rear passenger side of a Nissan Navara ute, causing it to rotate out of control on to the wrong side of the road and into the path of a B-double milk tanker travelling in the opposite direction.
Wednesday’s court hearing was an application by the prosecution to cross-examine Mr Joannidis’s girlfriend, who was a passenger in the car at the time of the crash.
Mr Joannidis did not appear in court on Wednesday and was not represented by defence counsel.
In her evidence, Mr Joannidis’s girlfriend told the court Mr Joannidis slowed down at the ‘reduce speed’ signs before the intersection on Labuan Rd, but she did not remember feeling any rumble strips on the approach to the intersection.
She also said after going over a rise in the road where an old railway line was, she did not see another sign until “less than a second before she saw the ute” on the Murray Valley Hwy.
That sign was a ‘give way’ sign marking the intersection with the Murray Valley Hwy.
“The road just looked like it was going straight,” the woman said.
“It didn’t look like an intersection.”