The man responsible for the November Daylesford pub crash suffered from diabetes. Source: Kate Wilcox, Wikimedia Commons
The man who crashed an SUV into patrons at Daylesford pub had multiple warnings on his phone of low blood glucose levels before the tragic crash occurred.
William Swale, aged 66, was arrested on Monday for the crash on the 5th of November, which claimed five lives and injured others.
Mr Swale has been living with type one diabetes for thirty years and has been charged with five counts of culpable driving causing death, two counts of negligently causing serious injury, and seven counts of reckless conduct endangering life.
Detective Sergeant Peter Romanis told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday that Mr Swale checked his blood glucose monitoring device at 5:17pm, around 40 minutes before the crash.
Romanis said the device showed a reading of 2.9 millimoles of glucose per litre of blood, which is below a safe threshold.
“The accused received and ignored a further eight mobile phone alerts via a blood glucose monitoring app prior to the collision occurring,” Sergeant Romanis said.
Romanis said Mr Swale was also seen on CCTV entering a wine bar bat 5:20pm and asking for a table at the venue before returning to his vehicle.
Mr Swale was seen driving his vehicle at 5:42pm and 5:44pm, and at 6:07pm when he “lost control of the BMW” on Albert Street, when it went over a kerb and crashed into the diners at the Royal Daylesford Hotel.
Pratibha Sharma and her husband, and her nine-year-old daughter Anvi, were killed, along with father and son Vivek and Vihaan Bhatia.
Mr Bhatia’s younger son, Abir, and wife Ruchi, were hospitalised but have since been released.
Romanis said that bystanders who rushed to help observed Mr Swale as being “sweaty,” “hot,” and “clammy.”
Mr Swale’s lawyer, Martin Amad, said Mr Swale would be pleading not guilty, and argued the tragic incident was caused by a “fair and square a medical episode.”
The court heard that Mr Swale had 30 previous penalty notices for driving infringements but only one prior conviction.
Mr Amad said there may be a number of reasons why Mr Swale failed to take notice of the low blood glucose warnings, including being in the middle of a medical episode.
Mr Amad asked Sergeant Romanis during the cross-examination if Mr Swale had managed his medical condition well since he was diagnosed in 1994, to which Romanis replied “yes.”
Romanis said medical and mobile phone evidence would play an important role in the prosecution case.
“We’ve made approaches to the company responsible for the app. We’re discussing with them at the moment about the provision of information for the case,” Romanis said.
Mr Swale was remanded in custody until Friday while a decision is made on whether to release him on bail.
