Hit-run driver Stephanie Maher found guilty over cyclist's Nepean Highway death

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This was published 7 years ago

Hit-run driver Stephanie Maher found guilty over cyclist's Nepean Highway death

By Adam Cooper
Updated

A former nurse who once stole drugs from terminally ill patients has been found guilty of culpable driving causing death.

A County Court jury on Tuesday found Stephanie Maher guilty over the death of Julian Paul, 54.

Stephanie Maher, seen outside the County Court this month, has been found guilty of culpable driving causing death, failing to stop and failing to render assistance.

Stephanie Maher, seen outside the County Court this month, has been found guilty of culpable driving causing death, failing to stop and failing to render assistance.Credit: Justin McManus

Mr Paul suffered head and spinal injuries when hit from behind by Maher's car on the Brighton East stretch of Nepean Highway on the night of November 26, 2013.

Mr Paul, a keen cyclist and a father of two daughters, died about three weeks later in hospital.

Stephanie Maher leaves the Melbourne Magistrates Court in October 2008 after she was sentenced for stealing drugs from terminally ill patients.

Stephanie Maher leaves the Melbourne Magistrates Court in October 2008 after she was sentenced for stealing drugs from terminally ill patients.Credit: Jason South

The jury also found Maher guilty of failing to stop at the scene of an accident and failing to render assistance.

The jury was told that Maher, 33, was seen driving erratically and at times had her eyes closed and her head tilted, as if asleep, in the minutes before she hit Mr Paul without braking, about 9.30pm.

While at a red light, one driver looked in her rear-view mirror and saw Maher's eyes closed for two or three seconds and her head tilted back, the trial heard.

Prosecutor Ray Gibson said that although prosecutors could not determine what caused Maher's fatigue, it was their case that "she knew, or ought to have known, there was an appreciable risk of her falling asleep or losing control of the car".

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Maher had her young son in the car and left the scene before leaving her car about a kilometre away from her home in Moorabbin.

She pleaded not guilty to the charges, denied culpability and told police she drove away from the crash because she was unaware she had hit Mr Paul and thought a rock had hit her windscreen, the court was told.

She claimed she didn't want to take her damaged car home because it would have been seen by her brother, who lived in the same apartment block and had mental health problems.

Prosecutors argued Maher was fatigued that night and would have known, or ought to have known, she could have fallen asleep at the wheel or lost control of her car.

Mr Paul had been wearing a yellow and blue cycling top and had lights and reflective tape on his bicycle on his ride home from work.

Maher sobbed in the dock with her head in her hands before being remanded in custody until a plea hearing on July 21.

Outside court, Bicycle Network chief executive Craig Richards said it was good to see justice being served.

"People shouldn't be getting behind the wheel when they're not fit to do so," he told reporters.

"They're carrying two tonnes of metal here, they're in control of a very powerful weapon.

"On this occasion it was described as a disaster waiting to happen by the prosecution, and the consequences for everyone are absolutely terrible."

Drug thefts

Before the trial, another judge ordered media reports of Maher's committal hearing two years ago, and her 2008 guilty plea to stealing drugs from hospitals, be removed from the internet.

Maher's lawyers argued their client would be denied a fair trial if a juror or potential juror found the stories in online searches.

Lawyers for Fairfax Media argued that a properly-instructed jury would not have been permitted to search for Maher's name online.

The articles can now be re-published online.

In 2007 and 2008 Maher – at the time a registered but suspended nurse – infiltrated some of Melbourne's leading public and private hospitals to remove intravenous pain-relief drugs from patients, including a dying woman, to support her heroin addiction.

At a hearing into those offences, the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told that, on March 13, 2008, Maher entered a private room at Cabrini Hospital in Prahran.

There she struck up a conversation with a terminally ill patient, and, after checking the woman's medical chart, removed her infusion pump.

Maher left the hospital with the entire pump and contents that contained an estimated four milligrams of pain relief medication.

Later that same day the court was told that Maher, posing as a student nurse, entered Cabrini Hospital in Malvern where she helped bathe a patient recovering from major abdominal surgery.

The court heard that Maher removed the line connected to the man's analgesic pump, which delivered morphine, and a pain relief line to remove a syringe of morphine.

Maher's mother told the court that Maher was "broken-hearted" and appalled over the drug thefts.

Magistrate Susan Wakeling spared Maher an immediate prison sentence, sentencing her, in October 2008, to eight months imprisonment, with the sentence to be served outside prison under an intensive corrections order.

She was also put on a two-year good-behaviour bond and ordered to pay $7000 restitution, provide a forensic sample and pay $1000 to a charity.

With Stephen Butcher and AAP

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