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Police driving to the scene of a crash involving a colleague say they feared they could be responding to a “catastrophic” incident, as one officer, who allegedly drove up to 230km/h, fights charges of dangerous driving and speeding in court this week.
Leading Senior Constable Bradley Beecroft was travelling in the first police car set to arrive at the scene of two separate collisions in one location, one involving the rear-ending of a stationary police car on the 110km/h stretch of freeway.
Leading Senior Constable Bradley Beecroft.Credit: Nine
In police radio communications played to the Wangaratta Magistrates’ Court this week, the injured officer, Leading Senior Constable Lucas Paul, was dazed and confused as he paged the police communications centre for help.
“Can you get an ambulance here, I’ve just been rear-ended. I’m not doing that well,” Paul said over the radio.
Seconds later, he fell silent on the end of the police radio and failed to respond to requests for his condition.
Paul later told investigators he was sitting in his vehicle taking notes about a car that had collided with the wire rope barriers and had been abandoned on a blind corner of the freeway nearby, when he heard the skidding of brakes from behind him and a large bang caused his vehicle to jolt forward.
Paul was taken to hospital with minor injuries with another officer who attended the scene noting his colleague was lucky to be alive.
That officer, Sergeant Mark Kennedy, said he feared were going to arrive at a “catastrophic” scene.
“We were thinking of the worst,” Kennedy said.
Beecroft, a highway patrol officer of more than 14 years, who holds a gold class driver’s licence with no speed restrictions attached, was the closest unit. He allegedly travelled at speeds of up to 230km/h to reach the scene near Euroa, about 160 kilometres north of Melbourne, shortly before 3pm on March 21, 2021.
Generic airwing vision of the Hume Highway.
Beecroft was later charged with dangerous driving and speeding. He has pleaded not guilty and is contesting the charges in court this week.
The court heard the case would likely come down to the reasonableness of the officer’s speed in the circumstances.
Beecroft’s passenger and partner that day, Leading Senior Constable Robert Kucia, said in court this week that at no time did he feel unsafe while Beecroft was driving to the scene.
While on their way to the scene, Kucia said the pair heard Paul’s call for help and were unaware of how seriously injured the officer may be.
“He came across as distressed,” Kucia said of the injured officer’s initial call for help.
“At some stage, there was no response. We had concerns there had been no reply … so we increased speed and activated the blue lights … on the freeway.
“We proceeded with haste to where we believed the location of the crash was.”
In Paul’s statement, read to the court by the police informant, he said he attended the scene alone to find a vehicle had been abandoned in a dangerous position on a blind bend.
Then, after he was rear-ended, the officer said he learned the driver who had struck him had a child in the car.
“I told him to go back to her and take care of her and get off the road and over the barriers,” Paul said.
“I could hear police communications trying to raise me over the radio. I was trying to come back up on the radio but due to being dazed and confused, I was a bit delayed. I was trying to stay conscious.”
Prosecutors allege Beecroft endangered the lives of other road users when he unreasonably reached speeds of 230km/h while on route to the collision site.
The footage from Beecroft’s body-worn camera, played to the court, showed the officer pointing out a nearby fixed speed camera and saying, “I don’t care about the speed”, shortly before they arrived at the crash site.
Beecroft is a highway patrol officer.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“A line was crossed in this case, we say,” prosecutor Marcel White said.
“A gold class licence is not a licence to breach the Road Safety Act.”
Other officers who also responded to the scene, who had speed limitations on their licences, breached those speed limits but were not charged. In-car data showed one of those officers, then a first constable, travelled at more than 140km/h while only permitted to go 25km/h over the speed limit.
While a speed camera detected Beecroft travelling at about 200km/h, the prosecution allege in-car data saw him reach 230km/h.
The crash in Euroa came less than a year after four officers were hit and killed while standing at the side of the Eastern Freeway in Kew, when a truck veered into the emergency lane.
The hearing before Magistrate Victoria Campbell continues.
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