NSW:Drunk survivor can't remember fatal crash

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-2011
NSW:Drunk survivor can't remember fatal crash

SYDNEY, April 27 AAP - A man who was in a car which crashed and killed two teenagers
has told an inquest his last recollection was being in a beer-sculling competition with
one of them.

Shayne Hausner, 14, and Cailin Deering, 16, drowned when the car they were in ran off
an embankment into the Murray River at Barnawartha in northern Victoria on March 11, 2007.

The sole survivor, 26-year-old Billy Christopher Dixon of Sydney, escaped from the
submerged car through a window.

Giving evidence at the inquest into the teenagers' death at Glebe Coroner's Court on
Wednesday, Mr Dixon said his last recollection was being in a sculling competition with
Shayne, who he thought was aged "roughly" 17.

He told the inquest he had been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol
and unlicensed driving in relation to his driving preceding the crash.

Mr Dixon agreed the charge covered a period up to the time he drove from a camp site
with the two teenagers in the car.

He pleaded guilty in Wodonga Magistrate's Court to the offences and received a six-month
jail term which was reduced to three months on appeal.

Police have been unable to determine who was driving the car at the time it entered the river.

Mr Dixon told the inquest he believed Shayne and another male had a go at driving his
car on the day before the accident.

The inquest is continuing.

AAP mss/nep/wjf/nb

KEYWORD: HAUSNER

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