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Durban – Eight years after 40-year-old Felicity Coppard was killed in a horrific accident in which her car was sliced in two, the man alleged to be responsible for the crash has walked free.
Durban magistrate Melanie de Jager granted a discharge to Craig Beer on Monday on technical grounds that the State could not prove what had happened.
The Mercury understands that crucial witnesses, such as ambulance attendants, could not be called because they had left the country and could not be traced.
According to evidence, on the night of the accident in July 2006 Beer, who turns 42 on Tuesday, was driving a Toyota RunX.
The state alleged that he had been travelling at speed when he approached the intersection of Alpine Road in Overport, crashing into Coppard’s Ford Laser as she was turning into Alpine Road.
Tow truck driver Selvan Pillay said he had been parked on the grass verge at the intersection and had heard “someone speeding”.
He saw the RunX “flying” up the road, estimating it was doing 200km/h. The car had not skidded, hooted or flashed its light.
Inspector Fred Snodgrass, of the police accident response unit, said the driver of the RunX had seemed more worried about his possessions than the occupants of the other car.
He said the RunX must have been going very fast because, in his 20 years experience, he had never seen a car break into two.
According to a post mortem report, Coppard died from “multiple blunt force injuries”, although, the magistrate noted later, her name was not listed on the report.
Beer pleaded not guilty to a charge of culpable homicide and, at the close of the State’s case, defence advocate Russell Hand argued that the chain of evidence in the case was “hopelessly inadequate”.
He said the identity of the victim had never been proved, there was no evidence about who had removed her from the scene, whether or not she had sustained further injuries after the accident and when and where she died.
He asked that Beer be discharged because there was no evidence on which he could be convicted. The State did not oppose the application. In her ruling on Monday, the magistrate said she did not agree that the identity of the victim had not been proved because a police officer at the scene had picked up Coppard’s ID and confirmed her identity.
However, there was no evidence as to the cause of death because the post mortem report did not bear her name.
“This court has to accept that she passed away but the question remains was it due to the injuries she sustained during the accident or was there any other act that could have caused her to pass away?” she said, granting Beer the discharge.
The Mercury
